OJPSOpen Journal of Political Science2164-0505Scientific Research Publishing10.4236/ojps.2014.43016OJPS-48450ArticlesSOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIESEthnic Nepotism as a Cross-Cultural Background Factor of Ethnic ConflictsTatuVanhanen1*University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland* E-mail:tatu4@saunalahti.fi30052014040314315524 April 201427 May 2014 11 June 2014© Copyright 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. 2014This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The purpose of this article has been to explore why ethnic conflicts tend to break out in all ethnically divided societies. The principal explanation was traced to the evolved disposition for ethnic nepotism shared by all human populations. Ethnic nepotism was measured roughly by the degree of ethnic heterogeneity of the populations. It was correlated with the scale of ethnic conflicts in the group of 187 countries. The results of correlation analysis indicate that ethnic heterogeneity explains 55% of the variation in the scale of ethnic conflicts, and the results of regression analysis disclose that the same relationship more or less applies to all 187 countries. These results led to the conclusion that ethnic nepotism is the common cross-cultural background factor which supports the persistence of ethnic conflicts in the world as long as there are ethnically divided societies.

Ethnic Nepotism Ethnic Heterogeneity Cross-Cultural Conflicts1. Introduction that the purpose of this article is to explore the emergence of ethnic conflicts in all ethnically divided societies and to seek a theoretical explanation for the universality and persistence of these conflicts. I criticized earlier theoretical explanations for their tendency to pay attention only to some cultural and other environmental factors and to forget the possibility that the ultimate explanation for the persistence of ethnic conflicts might be in human nature. I prefer the primordial conceptualization of ethnicity and trace my explanation to the sociobiological theory of ethnic nepotism. According to this theory, it is genetically rational to support relatives because we share more genes with relatives than that with outsiders. From this perspective, ethnic groups are extended family groups. I assume that all human populations are cross-culturally aware the same evolved disposition to ethnic nepotism, which explains the universality of ethnic conflicts and makes it justified to hypothesize that the more deeply a population is ethnically divided, the more interest conflicts become canalized along ethnic lines.

I tested this hypothesis by empirical evidence on the level of ethnic conflicts and the degree of ethnic heterogeneity, and checked the results by some alternative explanatory variables. The results of correlation analyses indicate that ethnic heterogeneity of the population (EH) explains 55% of the variation in the five-level scale of ethnic conflicts (EES), whereas the best alternative explanatory variable (HDI-12) does not explain more than 28% of the variation in EES. The results of multi-regression analysis, in which all five alternative explanatory variables (national IQ, HDI-12, Economic Freedom, ID-12, and GNI per capita income) together with the degree of ethnic heterogeneity are used to explain the variation in EES, show that the explained part of variation in EES rises from 55% to 60%. It is only 5 percentage points more than what EH alone explains.

I came to the conclusion that the degree of ethnic heterogeneity is by far the most important explanatory variable. Only 45 percents of the variation in EES remained unexplained. The unexplained variation is probably due to measurement errors, accidental factors, and various unknown cultural and environmental factors. Because many different and unrecognized factors affect the scale values of EES, it would be unrealistic to hope that any explanatory variable could explain all or nearly all of the variation in EES. The achieved explanation of 55% is already extremely high. The impact of ethnic nepotism explains why the scale of ethnic conflicts in Table 2 tends to be moderate or high in ethnically most divided societies and why it tends to be low in ethnically less divided societies. It is evident that ethnic nepotism is the cross-cultural background factor in the relationship between EH and EES. Ethnic nepotism explains by EH more than a half of the variation in EES in the 187 contemporary countries and predicts the persistence of ethnic conflicts to continue as long as there are ethnic divisions in the world. In other words, because of ethnic nepotism shared by all populations, the disappearance of ethnic conflicts, violence, and wars does not seem to be possible. Ethnic nepotism seems to persist as the cross- cultural background factor of ethnic conflicts in all parts of the world. So the message of this article is that it would be useful for social scientists to take into account the impact of ethnic nepotism in their studies of ethnic and other conflicts.

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