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Lars-Erik Cederman Professor of International Conflict Research SNIS Biennial Conference on “Political and Economic Inequality”, ETH Zürich, January 28-29, 2016

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Ethnic Inequality and Conflict

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Outline

§  Inequality and conflict §  Ethno-political inequality and civil war §  Ethno-economic inequality and civil war

§  Trends and causes of inequality §  Ethno-political inequality §  Ethno-economic inequality

§  Conclusion

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landdestroyer.blogspot.com

www.telegraph.co.uk

Ethnic inequality in recent and current civil wars

www.telegraph.co.uk

South Sudan

Israel, Gaza, West Bank

Isis Ukraine

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An economic approach to civil war §  Inequality irrelevant! §  “Greed/Opportunities” rather

than “grievance”

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Prof. Paul Collier, Oxford Univ.

So what causes civil war? Rebel movements themselves justify their actions in terms of a catalogue of grievances: repression, exploitation, exclusion. Politically motivated academics have piled in with their own hobbyhorses, which usually cast rebels as heroes. I have come to distrust this discourse of grievances as self-serving. ”

Bottom Billion, OUP 2007

“

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Our research

§  Focus on how ethnic inequality along political and economic lines may trigger civil war

§  Inequality, Grievances and Civil War §  Lars-Erik Cederman, ETH Zürich §  Kristian Skrede Gleditsch Univ. of Essex §  Halvard Buhaug, PRIO

Cambridge University Press, 2013 §  Articles in American Political Science Review,

American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, World Politics, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution

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From ethnic inequality to civil war

Ethnic inequality

Grievances

Macro link

Group identification Intergroup comparison

Evaluation of injustice Framing and blaming

Repress or redress?

Mobilization

Civil war

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Ethnic Power Relations Dataset

§  Ethnic groups’ power access and settlement areas worldwide 1946-2013

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Vogt et. al. 2015. Journal of Conflict Resolution http://growup.ethz.ch

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Ethno-political inequality and civil war

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0.00

40.

006

0.00

80.

010

Political Status

Pred

icte

d Pr

obab

ility

of C

onfli

ctIncluded Excluded

Conflict probability

Included groups

Excluded groups

See Cederman, Wimmer & Min (2010) Source: Ethnic Power Relations (EPR-ETH) Dataset, http://growup.ethz.ch

Government

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

State Polity

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Ethno-political inequality and conflict, cont’d

§  Exclusion and conflict duration: §  Wucherpfennig et al. (World Politics 2011)

§  Ethnic inclusion and power sharing: §  Cederman, Hug, Schädel & Wucherpfennig (APSR 2015) §  Wucherpfennig, Hunziker and Cederman (AJPS forthcoming)

§  Exclusion and oil: §  Hunziker and Cederman (2016)

§  Language and religion: §  Bormann, Cederman & Vogt (JCR 2015)

§  Transnational relations and refugees: §  Cederman, Gleditsch, Salehyan & Wucherpfennig (IO 2013),

Rüegger (2015) 9

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Explaining postcolonial conflict

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Conflict Colonial Strategy

Initial Inclusion

Wucherpfennig, Hunziker, Cederman. “Who Inherits the State? Colonial Rule and Post-Colonial Conflict.” Forthcoming in American Journal of Political Science

3 4 5 6 7

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Initial Inclusion

log Distance to Coast

Pred

icte

d Pr

obab

ility

British

French

3 4 5 6 7

−1.0

−0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

British vs. French Initial Inclusion

log Distance to Coast

Diff

eren

ce in

Pre

dict

ed P

roba

bilit

y

−1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Change in Predicted Probability of Conflict for Included Groups

Dens

ity

Model 3

Model 4

naïve

with reverse causation

change in conflict probability

distance from coast

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Ethno-economic inequality and civil war

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1 2 3 4 5 6

0.00

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05

Low Ratio

Pred

icted

Pro

babi

lity o

f Con

flict

Measuring inequality Effect of inequality

Yugoslavia: GECON and GeoEPR (1990)

Slovenes

Albanians

Gross Cell Productunder 1.941.94 − 3.883.88 − 5.825.82 − 7.76over 7.76 Relative poverty of group

Conflict prob.

See Cederman, Weidmann & Gleditsch (2011) Source: Ethnic Power Relations (EPR-ETH) Dataset, http://growup.ethz.ch

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Nightlights and ethno-economic inequality

Bamar(Barman)

§  Chen & Nordhaus (PNAS 2011) Myanmar (GECON−based Estimates)Myanmar (Nightlight−based Estimates)

Bamar(Barman)

Kachins

Shan

Kayin (Karens)

Inequalityunder 0.40.4 − 0.60.6 − 0.80.8 − 11 − 1.2over 1.2

G-Econ Estimate Nightlights Estimate

Myanmar

Cederman, Weidmann & Bormann. 2015. “Triangulating Horizontal Inequality.” Journal of Peace Research.

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Trends toward ethno-political equality

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1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

PowersharingExcludedDiscriminated

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Trends in ethno-political inequality: Excluded population in world regions

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Diffusion of ethnic inclusion

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2010

DominancePower SharingEthnicity Irrelevant

Cederman, Gleditsch & Wucherpfennig. 2015. Diffusion of Inclusion: An Open-Polity Model of Ethnic Power Sharing. Working Paper

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Transitions to inclusion/exclusion by regional neighborhood

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0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

0.00

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

Regional/neighboring context

Pr(tr

ansi

tion

to e

xclu

cion

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

0.00

00.

005

0.01

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015

0.02

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025

Regional/neighboring context

Pr(tr

ansi

tion

to in

clus

ion

Shift to inclusion Shift to exclusion

Inclusion in neighborhood Inclusion in neighborhood

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Trends in ethno-economic inequality

17 Bormann, Cederman, Pengl & Weidmann. 2016. Globalization, Exclusion and Ethnic Inequality. Working Paper.

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Effect of globalization on relative poverty

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Mar

gina

l Effe

ct o

f Eco

n. F

low

s

-1.8 -1.4 -1 -.6 -.2 .2 .6 1 1.4 1.8Government Effectiveness

Included

Excluded

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.4.6

.8D

istri

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over

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-.1-.0

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argi

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ffect

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0 .05 .1 .15 .2 .25 .3 .35 .4 .45 .5Investment Share in GDP

Included

Excluded

02

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§  Gap between included and excluded groups widened in “neopatrimonial” states and narrowed in “developmental” states

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Conclusions

What do we know? §  Ethno-political inequality è Conflict §  Ethno-economic inequality è Conflict §  Ethno-politics inequality has mostly been decreasing

except in the Middle East §  Globalization reduces ethno-economic inequality in

“developmental” states but not in “neopatrimonial” ones What needs to be done? §  Data, data, data... §  Violent and non-violent consequences beyond civil war §  Mechanisms driving ethnic inequality

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