Political Inequality in the DRC: the construction of a dataset.

What is the relation between inequality of access to key political and economic institutions and conflict? Equality does not only manifest itself along economic lines, but also politically, in the distribution of political power. It has been claimed that inequality of access of certain social and political groups can explain patterns of war and peace (Lindemann 2010). Yet, investigating these questions require data in support of these claims. For the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has been affected by cycles of conflict, these data are missing. This project aims to construct a dataset on the inequality of access to key political and economic positions since independence in 1960. More particularly, this project aims to analyse the characteristics of cabinet ministers and board members of parastatals. While similar works have focused on ethnicity as a determinant of inclusion and exclusion in political positions in a number of African countries (e.g. Francois, Rainer & Trebbi, 2015), this project seeks to capture the process of inequality along a wider range of characteristics: linguistic, regional, political-party, gender, and military background. On the basis of these, the relation between political inequality and the presence of war will be studied.

Keywords:CONGO, GOVERNANCE

Disciplines:Area studies, Political sociology, National politics not elsewhere classified, Political representation, executive and legislative politics, International public administration