Creation of Social Order in Ethnic Conflict
Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 365-394, 2009
34 Pages Posted: 2 Dec 2013
Date Written: December 2, 2013
Abstract
This paper develops a model of random matching with costly monitoring to demonstrate that the threat of ethnic conflict can function to create an in-group policing mechanism which helps enforce inter-ethnic social order. Instead of regarding ethnic conflict as a form of collective penalty on an unidentified wrongdoer and his ethnic brethren (Fearon and Laitin 1996), we argue that ethnic conflict is triggered by a wrongdoing because avengers seek to take advantage of in-group networks for detecting and punishing the culprit. Our theory predicts that the success of inter-ethnic cooperation hinges on the quality of in-group policing. As a consequence, a group with lower-quality policing tends to have more frequent and longer disputes with other groups.
Keywords: ethnic conflict, in-group policing, social order, social matching game, costly monitoring
JEL Classification: D74, F51, Z13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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