Costly Discrimination and Ethnic Conflict: The Case of the Liberian Civil Wars

Abstract

Given the moral condemnation of ethnic conflict and the scarcity of resources and/or political will for international intervention, understanding the conditions under which ethnic conflict may resolve itself without the elimination or subjugation of an ethnic group (or groups) is important. The Liberian civil war of 1989 to1990 was characterized by brutal ethnic conflict. However, the subsequent civil wars of 1992 to1993 and 1994 to 1996 were characterized by factional affiliation increasingly independent of ethnic identity. I argue that ethnic discrimination by the warring factions became too costly in terms of available outgroup labor for both conflictive and productive activities. Also, despite discrimination being net-unprofitable, its abandonment came at a cost. Specifically, out-group labor was anticomplementary to in-group labor in conflictive activities. When Charles Taylor moved
towards abandoning ethnic discrimination, there were benefits in form of greater productivity from out-group labor; but they were partially offset by decreasing productivity of in-group labor. These insights from the Liberian case study can help to inform policy discussions regarding ethnic conflict more generally.

Keywords: ethnic conflict, Liberia, political economy