How Greed and Grievance Drive Conflict Together: A Study on how Ethnicity Influences Conflict

Abstract

Scholars widely accept that rebellion opportunities and personal grievances can drive civilians to rebel. They disagree on which factor, greed or grievance, has more conflict propensity. To analyze how grievance factors influence conflict, I evaluate ethnic fractionalization's relationship to conflict onset. I hypothesize that ethnic fractionalization does not directly cause conflict. I argue that ethnic fractionalization, a grievance factor, interacts with a country's greed factors. These interactions should increase greed factors' conflict propensities in highly fractionalized countries. I evaluate ethnic fractionalization's relationship to conflict onset quantitatively and qualitatively. I use probit regressions to model an interaction relationship between ethnic fractionalization and conflict onset. My results indicate that conflict onset factors' conflict propensities increase in highly fractionalized countries. However, my results lack substantive significance. I use a case study of post-2002 conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to show that uncovering ethnic fractionalization's interactions with conflict drivers can help scholars better understand what prompts conflict in highly fractionalized countries. My conclusions underscore that ethnic fractionalization's relationship to conflict onset is context-dependent. Ethnic fractionalization's conflict propensity depends on how a country's fractionalization levels interact with its other conflict drivers.