Economic Development and Political Stability: Africa Vs South East Asia

Why is Africa less developed than South East Asia?

Because it is less stable? (remmember both were colonies)

Fair enough, but why is South East Asia more stable?

Aha! That's where the crumbling of the cookie gets interesting...

Here's some food for thought:

Because ethnic tensions were stonger in a Africa as a result of the more artificial division of borders. By the way, South East Asia was pretty unstable in the early years of independence... China, Laos, Cambodja and Vietnam went at it pretty hard. There's always Myanmar (or Burma... how did that name change happen anyway?) and I don't know how developped these countries are. Hum...

Ok it seems I'm stuck in the typical Social Sciences conandrum... I'm stuck with more questions than answers and it's likely that my question might simply be fallacious and based on a wrong assumption. "Scientific methodology... Ah, What a pain you are!"

So ok... I guess that now I need to check if my basic assumption is correct and focus the analysis.

New question: "Is Africa more or less economically developed than South East Asia? , and if so why?"

Not that it wouldn't be interesting to check whether it is more or less legally, politically or socially developped, but one must start somewhere...

This should make my life easy. I pick a number of economic variables and then look at their determinants and understand what caused the differences in values between Africa and South East Asia.

Potential Variables:

1. GDP and its growth (Capital stock and its growth, Size of labour force and its growth, depreciation of capital stock and its growth and their productivity, for a Solow growth approach to the issue; or initial GDP, social and political stability measured as number of murders, terms of trade, and human capital for a New [ie endogenous] growth theory approach à la Barro; finally for just the GDP I may wanna compare the accounting variables: Y=C+I+G+X-M)
2. GDP per capita and its growth
3. Gini Index (for some idea of the income inequality) and its growth
4. Inflation and its growth
5. Unemployment and its growth

so I guess I'll have to look into it...

By the way, I should mention this all started because someone told me they had studied many things during their master's, one of which had been conflict resolution. The question seemed relevant at the time, but I feel like I'm not really running towards it... It seems as though the issue started as one of political stability and now, by refocusing the question I've completely removed it from its original purpose... Oh well! What are you gonna do?

But the original question is still relevant and probably easier to assess... "Is South East Asia more politically stable than Africa? If so why?"

Political stability

1. number wars in a certain period of time
2. number of governments in a certain period of time
3. level of control/authority projected by the government throughout its geographical jurisdiction
4. number of politically motivated aggressions (from the simple vandalism to political assassinations)

Causes

1. Heterogeneity of population (this kind of fits into the Cleavage structure)
2. Lack of functional institutions to mediate conflicts and legitimise decisions from the majority This is a huge heading: incorporates the recognition of specialization and sphere of influence of one institution by all the others (Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Military, Police, Central Bank), has to do with number of veto players (Horizontal executive power sharing through the electoral system and cleavage structure and vertical executive power sharing presidential vs parliamentarian and federal vs unitary), possibility of exit and of exercising voice, legitimation (input or output) processes,
3. External interference
4. Geography and the geographical organisation of resources/capital (physical and human)

Fortunately I don't have a dissertation to write...