Us versus them: Ethnic inequality, diversionary nationalism, and international conflict

How does political inequality among ethnic groups motivate governments to engage in international conflicts? Previous research suggests that ethnic political inequality leads to internal instability and civil conflict. Nevertheless, the impact of such political inequality on international conflicts is less clear. This study addresses this gap by proposing that states who exclude large ethnic populations from the political system often (1) generate deep grievances along ethnic lines and (2) make state leaders depend more on a narrower ethnic coalition for political survival. Structural political inequality limits the state’s ability to adequately address domestic turmoil via co-optation and repression, since these solutions either upset the ethnic groups in power or are too costly to implement. These constraints prompt leaders of ethnically exclusive states to turn to diversionary conflict, especially against international rivals, to increase their co-ethnics’ cohesion and rally for their support. Statistical models of over 2,800 dyads of states between 1946 and 2014 (totaling over 112,000 dyad-years) support this argument. In addition, the findings show that, when states face both severe ethnic inequality and domestic turmoil, they are especially belligerent against not only rivals but particularly rivals who marginalize the home state’s ethnic groups in power.