Ethnic trust, minority status, and public goods in post-conflict societies
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320984211 |
| Date | 01 November 2021 |
| Author | Sam Whitt |
| Published date | 01 November 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Ethnic trust, minority status, and public
goods in post-conflict societies
Sam Whitt
Department of Political Science, High Point University
Abstract
This study considers how ethnic trust and minority st atus can impact the ability of ethnic groups to pursue
cooperative public goods, focusing on groups with a history of conflict and lingering hostility. A public good
experiment between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in postwar Kosovo reveals that subjects contribute far more to a
mutually beneficial public good when they are part of an experimentally induced coethnic majority. However, when
in the minority, subjects not only underinvest, but many actively divest entirely, privatizing the public good.
Majority/minority status also has wide-ranging implications for how individuals relate to real-world public goods
and the institutions of government that provide them. Compared to majority Albanians, survey data indicate how
minority Serbs in Kosovo express greater safety and security concerns, feel more politically, socially, and economically
excluded, are more dissatisfied with civil liberties and human rights protections, and are less likely to participate
politically or pay taxes to support public goods. Conflict-related victimization and distrust of out-groups are strong
predictors of these minority group attitudes and behaviors. This suggests a mechanism for how conflict amplifies out-
group distrust, increasing parochial bias in public good commitments, especially among minorities who are wary of
exploitation at the hands of an out-group majority. To restore trust, this study finds that institutional trust and
intergroup contact are important to bridging ethnic divides that inhibit public good cooperation.
Keywords
civil conflict, contact, ethnic trust, Kosovo, minority, public goods
Introduction
To what extent can individuals whose core group identi-
ties evoke a history of violence cooperate with oneanother
to pursue mutuallybeneficial public goods? Earlier studies
focused primarily on how ethnic diversity in itself can
undermine cooperation on outcomes related to public
good provision, political stability, and economic growth
(Easterly & Levine, 1997; Alesina, Baqir & Easterly,
1999; Montalvo & Reynal-Querol, 2005; Miguel &
Gugerty, 2005; Alesina & La Ferrara, 2005). However,
scholars are increasingly turning attention to the role of
horizontal inequalities (Østby, 2008; Baldwin &
Huber, 2010; Cederman, Weidmann & Gleditsch,
2011; Cederman, Weidmann & Bormann, 2015;
Huber & Mayoral, 2019) as well as the relative size,
political relevance, integration, and political competi-
tion among groups to explain their propensities for
conflict and cooperation (Posner, 2004b; Eifert,
Miguel & Posner, 2010; Ejdemyr, Kramon & Robin-
son, 2018; Lee, 2018). Although work related to group
size, status, and horizontal inequality has already made
considerable progress at the group level, more micro-
level research is needed to explain how the structure of
intergroup interactions could impact support for
mutually beneficial public goods (Habyarimana et al.,
2007; Chakravarty & Fonseca, 2017; Lazarev & Mir-
onova, 2018; Marshall & Paler, 2020; Berge et al.,
2020). More attention is also needed to understand
how conflict alters the willingness to cooperate on pub-
lic goods across ethnic divides. While the conflict liter-
ature has found some evidence of pro-social behavior in
the aftermath of violence (Blattman, 2009; Bateson,
2012; Voors et al., 2012; Gilligan, Pasquale & Samii,
Corresponding author:
swhitt@highpoint.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(6) 1239–1255
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343320984211
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2014), other studies have revealed increased division in
ethnically diverse contexts (Sambanis, Schulhofer-
Wohl & Shayo, 2012; Bauer et al., 2016). Finally,
while scholars of peacebuilding stress the importance
of institutions and intergroup contact to fostering trust
and cooperation among former rivals (Alexander &
Christia, 2011; Scacco & Warren, 2018; Blair, Karim
& Morse, 2019; Nomikos, 2019; Smidt, 2020), more
needs to be done to explain how these factors could
facilitate public good cooperation after violence.
This study addresses these important gaps in the lit-
erature by examining the effects of conflict on majority/
minority public good cooperation and the role that inter-
ethnic trust, institutions, and intergroup contact can play
in overcoming ethnic divides. In this study, I investigate
why individuals are more likely to contribute to public
goods among coethnics but not out-groups. Inferences
are based on both experimental and real-world settings in
the case of postwar Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians and
Serbs have a long history of tension and rivalry. The
research design utilizes a public good experiment to eval-
uate the willingness of ethnic Albanians and Serbs to
contribute money toward a public good when experi-
mentally induced into either ethnic majority or minority
status within a group. It fin ds that minority status is
more important than ethnic diversity itself in determin-
ing contributions to the public good. Individuals under-
invest when they are in the ethnic minority relative to
being in the coethnic majority. Conflict-driven victimi-
zation appears to intensify out-group distrust, leading to
increased parochial bias toward in-groups in public good
provision. The study then considers whether subjects are
sensitive to majority/minority status in the real world,
where ethnic Albanians constitute an overwhelming
majority of the population and Serbs are a small but
politically relevant minority. It finds that Serbs perceive
greater political, economic, and social exclusion than
Albanians, and are much less willing to pay taxes to
support public goods or participate politically in the
public realm. Finally, to bridge ethnic divisions, the
study reveals strong linkages between ethnic trust, inter-
group contact and institutional trust and support, sug-
gesting plausible pathways for enhancing public good
provision in more inclusive multiethnic societies.
Theory
Ethnicity is a complex, relational social category where
people are often identified and defined by social cues that
demarcate group boundaries (Hale, 2004; Chandra,
2006). While individuals often willfully sort themselves
and others into group categories like ethnicity (Tajfel,
2010), the process of ethnic social sorting can generate
tensions between in-groups and out-groups (Sherif,
2015). These tensions are often evident in the relation-
ship between ethnic diversity and public goods even in
peaceful societies, where ethnic diversity has been shown
to undermine public good provision (Alesina, Baqir &
Easterly, 1999). This study considers how ethnic diver-
sity and majority/minority status impact willingness to
contribute to public goods in a tense, post-conflict envi-
ronment. I argue that conflict can amplify distrust of
out-groups, especially among victims of violence, leading
to parochial bias in public good contributions and
underinvestment among those in the minority.
Cooperation on essential public goods could be an
important indicator of the emergence of positive peace
after violence (Galtung, 1969). This study draws atten-
tion to four types of real-world public goods involving
security, rule of law, political inclusion, and basic ser-
vices, which have been identified by Rotberg (2010) as
essential to the functioning of a state and reflect Mani &
Muhand’s (2007) conception of high-visibility public
goods (see also Bates, 2008; Iqbal & Starr, 2015). All
four public goods should be of vital interest to any citi-
zen, regardless of majority or minority status. However,
minority groups in post-conflict societies might be wary
of investing in public goods, especially if the majority has
de facto control over state institutions and administra-
tion of public good resources (Ejdemyr, Kramon &
Robinson, 2018; Lee, 2018). Such reluctance could be
expressed by a lack of political participation, trust and
support for political institutions, and willingness to pay
taxes to the state for the provision of public goods.
Why would minority status lead to underinvestment
in public goods? One possibility is that minorities are
simply free-riding off majority inve stments. However,
evidence suggests that coethnic majorities often attempt
to overcome minority free-rider problems by treating
public goods as de facto club goods: inclusive to their
group members but exclusive of minorities (Cornes &
Sandler, 1996; Chakravarty & Fonesca, 2017). While
prohibiting minorities from access to public goods can
occur even in peaceful, democratic majoritarian political
systems (Ostrom, Ostrom & Savas, 1977; Lizzeri &
Persico, 2001), conflict likely intensifies majority inten-
tionality in restricting minority access to public goods
and other forms of exclusion (Gurr, 2000; Horowitz,
2001). Minorities, in turn, realizing that they are not –
and likely never will be – members of the club, decide to
opt out, favoring either individualized private goods or
creating their own minority-majority club goods instead.
1240 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 58(6)
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