Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>National identity in sub-Saharan Africa is often portrayed as underdeveloped and less important than ethnic identity. Yet, recent empirical evidence from across the continent shows that national identity is more robust than many predicted. What then explains national belonging in African states? Existing theories do not provide an exhaustive list of ways that national identities form. This book presents an additional pathway for national identification to emerge, one that is a byproduct of shared political experiences and distinct country-level trajectories. It argues that divergent political developments between countries—distinct political outcomes that are highly visible to the population, such as peace, conflict and democracy—make citizens draw inferences about national characters, providing the basis for national imaginings. It further argues that when such political conditions become the core of national identification, a visible deterioration in them will negatively affect national identification. The book supports these arguments, and evaluates rival theories, using the cases of Ghana, Botswana and Benin. It uses over 400 original interviews among ordinary people across different regions of Ghana and Botswana to study the content of national identity and to test the salience of political developments vis-à-vis other ingredients of nation-building, such as state programs and cultural commonalities. It then uses the cases of Benin and Botswana—two cases of successful democracies that sustained democratic backsliding in recent years—to study the effect of democratic erosion on national identity. It uses additional secondary sources to assess the generalizability of the theory both in and outside of Africa.</jats:p>