At first glance western countries might seem to be the opposite of Africa with regards to ethnicity. Countries like France are ideal type nation states with ‘national’ borders based upon ethnicity. However in practice western states have large numbers of minorities whether this is through regions with local identities such as the Welsh or immigration. However despite such intermixing there is not the security threat as in Africa.  The most obvious reasons here is wealth. It is the state of the economy that is the main root of violence in Africa and that is the preserver of peace in Western liberal democracies. Rich countries can afford to use their wealth to paper over any cracks created by different identities. They can afford impartial civil services which have little incentive to favour one group over another. And when it come to religion there is a link between education and how religious someone is; one study has estimated an extra year of schooling leads to a 4 percentage-point increase in the likelihood that an individual reports having no religious affiliation at all.(1)  (1) Dubner, Stephen J., ‘Does More Education Lead to Less Religion?’, Freakonomics, 25 April 2011,