A rent-seeking perspective on imperial peace

Abstract I model a rent-seeking contest among two “identity ideologues,” differentially located along an identity continuum, and a “kleptocrat,” who can choose any location in-between. The contest jointly awards an identity-relevant good (religion) and an identity-irrelevant good (money). The kleptocrat values only money, the ideologues value both money and religion. The ideologues are worse off when the winner is located farther away. The kleptocrat can be arbitrarily more successful in the contest than the ideologues, even with a cost disadvantage. A decline in the kleptocrat’s cost of contest effort reduces conflict. Both ideologues lose in success probability, but gain in expected utility. Elimination of the kleptocrat increases conflict and makes the ideologues more successful yet worse off. My results rationalize “imperial peace” despite “imperial drain”—peace and stability within multi-ethnic empires despite significant resource extraction, and explain why imperial collapse is often associated with a sharp escalation in ethnic violence.