Conflict and distribution (Q1806206)

The aim of the paper is to study the relationship between conflict and the shape of the frequency distribution of individuals over a given set of alternative preferences. An outcome is viewed as a realization of a lottery, where outcome probabilities are related to the share of resources expended by each ``interest'' group. Conflict is defined as the equilibrium sum of resources dissipated in the struggle for preferred outcomes. Existence of conflict equilibrium is proved and sufficient conditions for uniqueness are given. Some other results are the following: (1) an increase in the utility distance between any pair of groups leads to an increase of conflict; (2) conflict is maximized at some symmetric bimodal distribution of the population in case groups' preferences are symmetric; (3) the uniform distribution of population over three groups is a local but never global maximizer of conflict in the case of pure contests; (4) in the situation of contests, the larger a group the more contentious it is; (5) the relationship between the pattern of conflict and the groups' weigths and positions in the structure of preferences can be very complicated in general; (6) at some point an extremist situation changes to a moderate one as extremist groups shrink in population size.