Polarization and conflict among groups with heterogeneous members

Abstract

We analyze the choice of the policy platform that a group of heterogeneous challengers will support to confront the current policy in a subsequent contest between them and the status-quo defenders. The choice of this alternative policy will affect not only the incentives of challengers to get involved in the conflict (intra-group effect), but also the mobilization of status-quo defenders (inter-group effect). We disentangle these two effects and show that the degree of polarization (distance between the alternative and the status-quo policy) depends on how the efforts that groups exert in the contest affect their winning probabilities. Our results illustrate how the conflict resolution rules may affect the degree of polarization in political confrontations.