Abstract
We examine whether shared collective experiences help build a national iden tity, by looking at the impact of national football teams’ victories in sub-Saharan Africa. We find that individuals surveyed in the days after an important victory of their country’s national team are 37% less likely to identify primarily with their ethnic group, and 30% more likely to trust other ethnicities, than those interviewed just before. Crucially, national team achievements also reduce vio lence: countries that (barely) qualified to the Africa Cup of Nations experience less civil conflict (9% fewer episodes) in the following months than countries that (barely) did not. Keywords: Nation-Building, Ethnic identity, Conflict, Trust, Football, Africa JEL codes: Z290, O120 “What has made sport so uniquely effective a medium for inculcating national feelings [...] is the ease with which even the least political or public individuals can identify with the nation as symbolized by young persons excelling [...]. The imagined community of millions seems more real as a team of eleven named people. The individual, even the one who only cheers, becomes a symbol of his nation himself.” Eric Hobsbawm (1990, p.143)
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