Explaining Diversionary Domestic Conflict: Inequality and Communitarianism in Russia

Abstract

Why do elites and ordinary individuals support targeting peripheral minorities? This study argues that high income inequality in the society and economic communitarianism among its population form the social basis for diversionary domestic conflict. When income inequality in society is high, the elites have an incentive to divert popular discontent toward peripheral minorities. High income inequality also raises the expectations for state assistance among the economically communitarian population strata, who tend to regard the minorities as a target for resource extraction. I test these conjectures using the case of Russia and Chechnya and find support for the proposed theory.