Theme Leaders
The increased propensities for destructive conflict and the lack of growth-enhancing public investment may lead to an ethnic growth trap: many poor, ethnically divided societies may remain poor precisely because they cannot overcome the political risks and challenges of investment that are accentuated by their ethnic divisions.
Theme 7 will focus on some key questions:
- Diagnosis: the roots of ethnic divisions and ethnic mobilisation. Diagnosing why different societies have remained ethnically diverse – despite the potential costs of conflict and poverty that may exist, is primordial to understand why policies aiming at peacebuilding or economic development may succeed or fail.
- Evaluating person-to-person policies for mitigating polarisation and conflict in ethnically divided societies. Given that modern societies are divided along ethnic lines, what policies can be most effective at supporting development and mitigating conflict in specific contexts?
- Strengthening governance institutions and capacity in ethnically-divided societies. Governance institutions do not function homogeneously in ethnically diverse societies, highlighting the need for research into which institutions can best accommodate and even leverage ethnic divisions.