Creation of Social Order in Ethnic Conflict

Keisuke Nakao

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2009, vol. 21, issue 3, 365-394

Abstract: This article 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: costly monitoring; ethnic conflict; in-group policing; social matching game; social order (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:21:y:2009:i:3:p:365-394

DOI: 10.1177/0951629809103970

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