Ethnicity and Conflict: An Empirical Study

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of ethnic divisions on conflict. The empirical specification is informed by a theoretical model of conflict (Esteban and Ray, 2011) in which equilibrium conflict intensity is related to just three distributional indices of diversity: ethnic polarization, ethnic fractionalization, and a Greenberg-Gini index of "difference" constructed across ethnic groups. Our empirical findings verify that these distributional measures are significant correlates of conflict. The underlying theory permits us to use these results to make inferences about the relative importance of public goods in conflict, as well as the extent of within-group cohesion in conflictual activity. These effects are further strengthened as we introduce country-specific measures of group cohesion and the relative importance of public goods, and combine them with the distributional measures exactly as specified by the theory.

War and conflict in economics: Theories, applications, and recent trends

“…Esteban and Ray (2011) generate a contest model of group conflict and demonstrate that the equilibrium level of conflict is theoretically proportional to a linear function of domestic inequality, fractionalization, and polarization. Esteban et al (2012) confirm the expected effects empirically, leading to a more nuanced understanding of conflict as a mixture of "greed" over private prizes and "grievance" over the allocation of public goods among groups. Mitra and Ray (2014) study Hindu-Muslim conflict in India and find evidence that conflict is increasing in Muslim wealth, though they do not claim to know which side is instigating in response.…”

“…Similarly, analyses of conflict have been expanded to consider interactions between different kinds of contestants, for instance conflicts between state and non-state actors (de Mesquita, 2013;Powell, 2013;Fearon, 2011;Esteban et al, 2015) or between ethnic groups (Esteban and Ray, 2011;Esteban et al, 2012;Mitra and Ray, 2014), and a number of papers consider the influence of third-parties on conflict frequency and outcomes (Baliga and Sjöström, 2012;Hörner et al, 2015;Dekel and Wolinsky, 2012). We describe these papers in somewhat more detail below.…”

The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa

“…Since the influential work of Easterly and Levine (1997), Africa's underdevelopment and conflict intensity has been linked to its widespread ethnolinguistic diversity. While the correlation between ethnic fragmentation and civil war is weak (Fearon and Laitin 2003), ethnic polarization (Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2005;Esteban, Mayoral, and Ray 2012), and inequality across and within ethnic lines (Huber and Mayoral 2014;Esteban and Ray 2011) correlates significantly with civil conflict. And a growing literature in political science (and recently in economics) shows the prevalence of ethnic politics, ethnic discrimination, and repression from the central government, and poor public goods provision across all parts of the continent (Posner 2005;Franck and Rainer 2012;Hodler and Raschky 2014;Luca et al 2015;Burgess et al 2015).…”

Terrorism risk and democratic preferences in Pakistan

“…There exists a large number of religious Muslim sects and subsects in Pakistan, due to different interpretations of the Sharia. It is argued that in districts with more religious fractionalization, there is a higher probability of religious and communal conflict Ray, 2008, 2011;Esteban and Mayoral, 2011;Esteban et al, 2012). Similarly, this instrument can be excluded from the second stage regression, since different interpretations of the Sharia law do not explicitly discuss modern political and democratic processes.…”