Some Results on Ethnic Conflicts Based on Evolutionary Game Simulation

TL;DR

This paper uses evolutionary game simulation to explore how civic identity influences ethnic conflicts, finding that periodic promotion of civic identity can maintain low conflict levels.

Contribution

It introduces a novel evolutionary game model to scientifically analyze the impact of civic identity on ethnic conflicts, providing empirical support for conflict reduction strategies.

Findings

Higher civic identity ratio correlates with increased conflict frequency

Ethnic conflicts persist despite forcible suppression or killing ethnic members

Periodic promotion of civic identity can sustain low conflict levels

Abstract

The force of the ethnic separatism, essentially origining from negative effect of ethnic identity, is damaging the stability and harmony of multiethnic countries. In order to eliminate the foundation of the ethnic separatism and set up a harmonious ethnic relationship, some scholars have proposed a viewpoint: ethnic harmony could be promoted by popularizing civic identity. However, this viewpoint is discussed only from a philosophical prospective and still lack supports of scientific evidences. Because ethic group and ethnic identity are products of evolution and ethnic identity is the parochialism strategy under the perspective of game theory, this paper proposes an evolutionary game simulation model to study the relationship between civic identity and ethnic conflict based on evolutionary game theory. The simulation results indicate that: 1) the ratio of individuals with civic identity has a positive association with the frequency of ethnic conflicts; 2) ethnic conflict will not die out by killing all ethnic members once for all, and it also cannot be reduced by a forcible pressure, i.e., increasing the ratio of individuals with civic identity; 3) the average frequencies of conflicts can stay in a low level by promoting civic identity periodically and persistently.