In-group competition out-group cooperation: cooperative players in protracted ethnic conflict resolution

This study examines intra-group competition over settlements in protracted conflicts, focusing on how they empower certain veto players allowing them to make deals across ethnic boundaries to compete with co-ethnic elites for in-group support. Institutional settlements can provide material benefits alongside conditions for participation in shared institutions to access those benefits. Cooperative players who emerge as alternatives to status quo veto players undermine existing elites’ support by striking bargains across ethnic boundaries, including on institutional participation to provide public goods, rather than maintaining ethnic closure. Cooperative players emerge during periods of economic decline, elite-led group closure, and when solutions to practical problems are linked to peace settlements. This argument is developed using analysis of group-level competition during settlement efforts in Cyprus and Kosovo.