Ricart-Huguet, Joan. “Colonial Education, Political Elites, and Regional Political Inequality in Africa”. Comparative Political Studies, 54(14),(2021) 2546–2580.

The author asks what factors determine regional representation in government cabinets, with case studies from 16 countries between 1929 and 2010. She argues that ministers are not chosen to represent all regions equally, nor are they chosen in proportion to the population of regions. Instead, she argues that regions with the greatest share of primary education in the colonial period gain outsized representation in the civil service and this in turn leads to outsized representation in cabinet. Cases are drawn from West and East Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi