One for all and all for one : institutions and ethnic conflict

Abstract

This thesis aims to unravel how institutional improvements help in ethnic conflict resolution, in line with Easterly’s (2001) results. As the main strands of the literature focus on intergroup relations by representing them as reputation games, they lose sight of groups’ greed for economic and political power. Here I develop a theoretical model with multiple extensions on that of Skaperdas (1992), in which not only group incentives for conflict but also the individual choice to belong to a group or to emancipate can be identified. The theoretical results show that institutional improvements can shift the equilibrium towards a more peaceful one, either as partitioned or non-partitioned societies. Finally, these results are tested with Mexican data at the municipality level.