Decolonization, Property Rights and Language Conflicts

19 Pages Posted: 18 Sep 2017

See all articles by Indraneel Dasgupta

Indraneel Dasgupta

Durham University - Department of Economics and Finance; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Ranajoy Neogi

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata - Economic Research Unit

Abstract

We model political contestation over school language policy, within linguistic communities where weak property rights protection leads to high decentralized expropriation. We show that improvements in governance institutions that facilitate property rights protection might exacerbate such language conflicts, even as they reduce the chances of persisting with educational indigenization, while, paradoxically, increasing the net social benefit from doing so. Our findings offer explanations of why languages and cultures of the colonizers continue to play a dominant role in the educational systems of most post-colonial developing societies, and why early post-independence attempts at cultural-linguistic indigenization were either reversed or slowed down subsequently. The main policy implication of our analysis relates to the connection it establishes between property rights protection and the welfare consequences of educational indigenization: such indigenization may improve social welfare when weak institutions lead to weak property rights protection, but reduce it otherwise.

Keywords: production and expropriation, linguistic communities, language policy, language conflict, linguistic autarchy, linguistic globalization, property rights

JEL Classification: D72, D74, O20, Z18

Suggested Citation

Dasgupta, Indraneel and Neogi, Ranajoy, Decolonization, Property Rights and Language Conflicts. IZA Discussion Paper No. 10998, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3037905 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3037905

Indraneel Dasgupta (Contact Author)

Durham University - Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

Durham, DH1 3HY
United Kingdom

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Ranajoy Neogi

Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata - Economic Research Unit

205 B.T. Road Indian Statistical Institute
Economic Research Unit
Kolkata, WA
India

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