Ethnic Polarization, Potential Conflict, and Civil Wars

By Jose G. Montalvo, Marta Reynal-Querol. 2005

1,608 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper analyzes the relationship between ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and conflict. In recent years many authors have found empirical evidence that ethnic fractionalization has a negative effect on growth. One mechanism that can explain this nexus is the effect of ethnic heterogeneity on rent-seeking activities and the increase in potential conflict, which is negative for investment. However the empirical evidence supporting the effect of ethnic fractionalization on the incidence of civil conflicts is very weak. Although ethnic fractionalization may be important for growth, we argue that the channel is not through an increase in potential ethnic conflict. We discuss the appropriateness of indices of polarization to capture conflictive dimensions. We develop a new measure of ethnic heterogeneity that satisfies the basic properties associated with the concept of polarization. The empirical section shows that this index of ethnic polarization is a significant variable in the explanation of the incidence of civil wars. This result is robust to the presence of other indicators of ethnic heterogeneity, other sources of data for the construction of the index, and other data structures.

Subfields: Demography, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d34e25710e0f59c77127215c237c4e3a5a19820b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Demography

1. Debraj Ray
2. Romain Wacziarg
3. Klaus Desmet
4. Ignacio Ortuño-Ortin
5. Joan Esteban
6. Alexander D. Rothenberg
7. F. van der ploeg
8. Giovanni Peri

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Debraj Ray
2. Joan Esteban
3. Klaus Desmet
4. F. van der ploeg
5. Ignacio Ortuño-Ortin
6. Giovanni Peri
7. Romain Wacziarg
8. Francesc Ortega

Citations in the corpus

• The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict (2012, neutral): “In their careful analysis, for example, Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005) argue that ethnic polarization (rather than fragmentation) promotes conflict.”
• Migration, diversity, and economic growth (2017, background): “Yet, whereas several authors have argued theoretically in terms of polarization but used as an empirical proxy the index of fractionalization, Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005a) show how polarization is better suited to capture the concept of social tensions.”
• Does Foreign Aid Help (2006, methodology): “This finding, however, is not robust to the specification of the model (see, for instance, Fearon and Laitin 2003, and Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2002, 2005) and depends heavily on the imputation criterion of missing data.”
• CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENT (2017, methodology): “This is the index used by Montalvo & Reynal-Querol (2005) in their study of the determinants of intermediate- and high-intensity civil war, as defined by the PRIO.”
• The economic effects of violent conflict: Evidence from asset market reactions (2005, background): “Some of these studies explore the factors that affect the likelihood of conflict onset and duration (e.g. Collier & Hoeffler, 1998, 2004; Montalvo & Reynal-Querol, 2005); other studies find a negative relationship between political instability and investments (e.g. Alesina & Perotti, 1996;…”
• LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY AND REDISTRIBUTION (2009, background): “In contrast to Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005), who demonstrate the relevance of polarization in the context of ethnic con ‡ict, we show that diversity and polarization are similar in their impact on redistribution.”
• Voting intentions in Africa: ethnic, economic or partisan? (2012, methodology): “To capture social context, we employ statistics that measure the fractionalisation of ‘politically relevant ethnic groups’ (PREG) (Posner, 2004)14 and the degree of ethnic polarisation, the maximal when individuals belong to one of two rival groups of the same size, the former maximal when every ind”
• ETHNIC DIVERSITY, PUBLIC SPENDING, AND INDIVIDUAL SUPPORT FOR THE WELFARE STATE: A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE (2013, neutral): “In one study (Montalvo and Reynal-Querol, 2005a) they also study economic growth and come to the opposite conclusion than Alesina et al. (2003), namely that polarization is more strongly associated with growth than fractionalization.”
• Openness and income: The roles of trade and migration (2014, background): “55 Garcia-Montalvo and Reynal-Querol (2005a, 2005b) argue that it is more appropriate to use polarization, as opposed to fractionalization measures.”