Politicized Ethnicity and Income Inequality

This article examines the effect of politicized ethnicity on income inequality. It hypothesizes that ethnically diverse countries that politicize ethnicity are more likely to have greater economic inequality than ethnically diverse countries that do not politicize ethnicity. The idea behind this hypothesis is that the more polarized a state is, the weaker its institutions, and thus the poorer the state's economy and the greater the chance of corruption and ethnic patronage. Since identity and governing structures are difficult to change, a country that politicizes ethnicity can be seen as institutionalizing ethnic differences for the long term. The article discusses how existing literature reaffirms this hypothesis through a variety of theoretical explanations and case studies. However, the results find that politicized ethnic identity is negatively correlated to higher inequality. Though these results are negative, more research must be done before this debate can be considered fully conclusive, as data for politicized ethnicity is limited. The article concludes with a brief statement on the policy implications of the findings for post‐conflict state building.