Money Talks: Cross-ethnic Patronage and Ethnic Conflict in China

Elites within a particular minority out-group in autocracies typically exhibit fairly heterogeneous reactions to the ethnic group in power. The usual result is intra-group variations in the propensity to participate in ethnic conflict. To explain these within-group differences, I highlight the importance of cross-ethnic patronage, which refers to patronage allocated by the ethnic group in power to minority out-group elites. The state can use cross-ethnic patronage to mitigate the risk of ethnic conflicts through two mechanisms. First, the sharing of government spoils at stakes gives minority elites disincentives to initiate anti-regime mobilizations, and second, this co-optation approach effectively enlists cooperative minority elites to strengthen social control. I examine my theory using original county-level fiscal and personnel data of China's Xinjiang region, including annual payrolls and the ethnic composition of over 220,000 local bureaucrats. Findings based on a dataset of ethnic conflicts in Xinjiang from 1980 to 1995 support my theoretical arguments.