Ethnopolitical Exclusion and Resource Conflict

Abstract

Why do natural resources fuel ethnic conflict in some ethnic homelands but not others? This article argues that the answer turns on the boundary between active discrimination and passive powerlessness. Among excluded groups, lootable resources raise conflict risk only where the state actively discriminates, not where groups are merely powerless; among included groups, the same resources predict lower risk. No rival account reproduces this positive/null/negative gradient. The boundary governs whether these groups fight, not what they fight over: petroleum pushes discriminated and powerless groups alike toward territorial conflict, wherever the oil sits. Two-way fixed-effects estimates on 859 ethnic groups in 150 countries (1960–2020) establish both patterns. The conflict-generating mechanism thus lies between a group and its state, so country-level resource-curse measures, averaged across the nation, can miss the within-country boundary that actually divides conflict from peace.