Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building

Abstract

We use a population resettlement program in Indonesia to identify long-run effects of intergroup contact on national integration. In the 1980s, the government relocated two million ethnically diverse migrants into hundreds of new communities. We find greater integration in fractionalized communities with many small groups, as measured by national language use at home, intermarriage, and children's name choices. However, in polarized communities with a few large groups, ethnic attachment increases and integration declines. Residential segregation dampens these effects. Social capital, public goods, and ethnic conflict follow similar patterns. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of localized contact in shaping identity. (JEL D63, J12, J15, J18, O15, R23, Z13)[The] central challenge of modern, diversifying societies is to create a new, broader sense of "we."

Support for interreligious conflict in Indonesia

“…housing, free land, and food supplies) to move people, often with different ethnic and religious backgrounds, from more dense areas (i.e. Java, Madura and Bali islands) to less populated areas, e.g., South Lampung, Aceh, Palu, Poso (Bazzi et al., 2017). The purpose of the program was twofold: economic enhancement of the receiving peripheral regions and the pursuit of a single national identity.…”