The outbreak of large-scale, often lethal, ethnic violence presents a critical threat to human cooperation, resulting in heavy costs for people. However, history indicates that deep ethnic divisions and polarisation are rarely settled or natural aspects of social life. Indeed, there is burgeoning evidence to substantiate that ethnic divisions are not merely settled but a devised strategy by political elites who wish to maintain or enhance their political power. Therefore, it is insufficient to merely point to predetermined differences to account for widespread violence, given that the same groups often lived peacefully alongside one another for decades. For instance, the history of their conflict lacks evidence of systematic political violence between the Hutu and Tutsi groups before 1959. There also wasn’t even political significance in the ethnic labels until the mid-19th century.
The violence that occurred in Rwanda, which culminated in approximately 800,000 deaths from genocide, was not motivated by ancient hatreds within groups, but was in fact the consequence of modern struggles involving wealth and power. The essential story to emerge from the case studies is straightforward: large-scale ethnic violence is ignited by elites seeking to gain, maintain, or enhance their control of political power.
The elite implement this strategy, colloquially known as "divide-and-conquer," by instigating conflict along ethnic lines specifically to increase the two groups' divisions and increase polarisation. Polarisation is fundamentally modelled as a lack of trust between the two groups – trust is built by positive economic interactions, such as trade. High trust generates a substantial common interest among the individuals of the two groups, which represents a significant risk of revolution against the autocratic elite. Should it instigate a revolution, it would switch the regime from an autocratic regime to a peaceful democracy, allowing individuals to trade freely without the elite expropriating their exchanges.
Therefore, to protect their power and from this existential threat, the elite actively choose to go to war on purpose. The ruling elite purposefully disrupts the individuals’ cross-group trade and prevents trust from developing or continuing to develop by instigating the conflict. The rational destruction of a common interest polarises society, reduces the possible shared democratic future, and preserves the elite's position of dominance, even when the strategy is disinterested for both groups. The elite's decision to go to war is often rooted in both fear of losing power from the opposing group and fear that the elite's own group would overthrow their regime if common interests diverged too far. This divergence between elite interests and the common good is the political engine that manufactures ethnic polarisation.
Trust as the First Casualty
A central element in the elite’s strategy to manufacture polarisation is the deliberate destruction of common interest, which is modelled fundamentally as a lack of trust between ethnic groups. Trust is nurtured directly by beneficial economic interactions, specifically trade, between members of different groups. When trust is high, people hold a common belief that cross-group relations are beneficial, increasing the expectation of large gains from trade.
This shared economic interest poses a dire threat to the autocratic elite because it significantly augments the common interest of people to revolt and switch the regime to a peaceful democracy, where trade surpluses would not be taxed. Therefore, the elite strategically choose to go to war precisely to interrupt cross-group trade.
By starting a conflict, the elite prevents trade interactions, thereby limiting the learning process that allows trust to emerge or grow. This manipulation achieves the desired goal: it harms trust, polarises society, and effectively limits the common interest that could unite people to overthrow their ruler. Even when trust is already high and peace would be beneficial for the entire society, the elite may strategically wage war to reduce the probability of revolution, knowing the conflict will cause trust to regress to a safer, lower level.
The Economics of Division
The ultimate aim of the elite’s "divide-and-rule" strategy is to neutralise the most significant threat to their autocratic power: the collective action of the people seeking a peaceful, democratic regime where they can trade freely without expropriation. The economic mechanism underlying this threat is the growth of trust, which is nurtured by beneficial cross-group trade. High trust translates directly into the expectation of large gains from trade, which in turn significantly increases the common interest of the people to revolt against an elite that taxes their surpluses.
To maintain their dominance, the ruling elite strategically chooses to initiate a conflict—a war—which serves to interrupt cross-group trade. Because trade can only take place during periods of peace, war effectively prevents trust from emerging or continuing to grow via the learning process derived from successful economic interactions. This calculated act of disruption limits the expectation of high trade gains and thereby suppresses the risk of revolution.
Furthermore, disrupting cooperation creates dependence. When trust levels are successfully kept low, the expected gains from trade are minimal. As a result, the existing people favour the transfers they receive from their elite (tax-funded) over the insignificant gains from trade, so they wish for the elite to continue. By further polarising society and antagonising common interests, the elite reinforces its position and maintains its exploitative rule, even though this runs counter to the economic interest of both parties.
War as a Political Strategy
For political elites operating under an autocratic regime, initiating conflict becomes a rational choice driven by the imperative of self-preservation. The ruling elite, which profits by deriving rents from being in power, faces two primary threats: losing power through transition to the opponent group and facing an internal revolution led by their own people. When these threats become sufficiently large, particularly the threat of revolution, the elite strategically decides to wage war.
The central dilemma for the elite arises when trust between ethnic groups is high. High trust, nurtured by economic interaction and trade, significantly augments the common interest of people to revolt and establish a peaceful democracy where trade surpluses are no longer expropriated by the elite. Since revolution implies the complete loss of all rents and incurs a high cost for the elite ($y^{RE} = -f^{RE}$), the elite is motivated to act preemptively.
When trust approaches or surpasses a critical threshold ($p^R$), the elite fears that allowing peace and trade could lead to a further increase in trust following good trade outcomes. This upward shift in belief could immediately trigger a revolution in the subsequent period. To maintain power and avoid this highly costly outcome, the elite chooses war as a calculated political strategy.
By starting a conflict, the elite ensures two strategic benefits: first, war increases the probability of the incumbent group remaining in power ($\pi^W > \pi^P$). Second, and crucially, war prevents cross-group trade, thus limiting the growth of trust and causing the existing high trust to regress toward a "natural," safer level where the risk of revolution is eliminated. This strategic polarisation, though fundamentally against the economic interest of both groups of people, secures the elite's long-term hold on power and is therefore seen as the optimal choice for maximising the elite’s expected lifetime income. Indeed, the elite is modelled as being more willing to go to war than the people precisely because they have far more at stake—the total loss of political rents—from either a political turnover or a popular revolution.
Case Studies in Manipulated Hatred: Rwanda and Yugoslavia
The history indicates that large-scale ethnic conflict frequently has results that are not because of historic hatreds, but because the political elite employed strategies to maintain their power. That is the strategy found in the various real-life examples of "divide-and-rule," and the deliberate use of violence to destroy social trust and encourage polarisation.
The issue of Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda is the most powerful example of sustained and politically manipulated hatred. Up until 1959, there was very little evidence of organised political violence between ethnic identities. Although the ethnic labels did not have political significance until the mid-19th Century. However, the genocide with close to 800,000 deaths can be attributed, but not entirely, to modern political struggles for power and wealth. Polarisation started when the Tutsi king Rwabugiri differentiated rules and distinctions based on cattle ownership, which began to sharpen ethnic distinctions. Then, colonial powers cemented the polarisations, especially the identity cards introduced in 1933-34, identifying individuals as either Hutu or Tutsi. Both created large challenges to social mobility and made ethnicity the determining characteristic of life in Rwanda. Most importantly, Hutu extremists clearly fostered violence at a systematic level to harm interaction and reduce trust among moderate Hutu and Tutsi before the 1994 genocide. This manufactured distrust, resulting from attacks that convinced moderates that the other side could not be trusted in negotiations, strengthened the extremists and allowed them to mobilise the masses.
In a similar vein, the disintegration and war in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and early 1990s provide another clear illustration of elites constructing ethnicity to divide citizens. The resulting violence was intentionally leveraged by ethnic leaders to "foment outrage among their moderates". Slobodan Milŏsević, purportedly an opportunist seeking power rather than nationalism, purposely attempted to polarise politics to monopolise authority within his group. The resulting nationalism was described by a historian as a "top-down, manipulated nationalism". Elites did this by instigating local ethnic violence and handpicking media amplification to create animosities to make cooperation seem impossible and keep them in power. In both examples, the elite's decision to instigate conflict was a rational, strategic decision to destroy the common interest (trust) that posed a "danger" to their autocratic rule.
Beyond the Divide: Rebuilding Trust as Resistance
The success of the "divide-and-rule" strategy totally depends on the elite's planned capacity to instil mistrust among the ethnic groups by breaking links in inter-ethnic commerce and interaction. Once societies acknowledge that these devastating conflicts are often politically-created constructs to sustain the elite’s autocratic power, rather than being constructed based upon inherent ethnic differences, societies will be better positioned to unknit that manufactured division to confront that conflict.
Since polarisation is modelled fundamentally as a lack of trust, the most potent form of resistance lies in rebuilding the common interest that autocrats fear. This is achieved by actively nurturing trust through increased and sustained beneficial economic interactions and cross-group trade. High levels of trust significantly augment the common interest of people to revolt and establish a democracy where trade gains are not expropriated.
Generally speaking, effective counter-measures focus on reducing the elite’s incentive or ability to reduce trust. By fostering unity and cooperation, societies increase the threat of revolution, thereby holding the elite accountable and ensuring that the interests of the people and the society overall—which favour peaceful trade—do not diverge from those of the rulers. When trust is high, the resulting powerful common interest is enough to dissolve the elite's exploitative rule.