Unstable power structures intensify intergroup conflict more than settled ones do.

Evidence

The ‘frustration-relative deprivation’ view holds that conflicts burst out when the gap between expectations and actual achievements becomes intolerable, that is, when relative deprivation increases actors’ frustrations beyond certain critical levels. Assuming actors to be rational, the power resources approach indicates that, where differences in power resources between actors are large, the weaker party may find it to be in its best interests, at least in the short term, not to attempt to resist the claims of the stronger actor and is likely, in the long run, to modify its levels of aspiration (Korpi, 1974). In distributive processes involving differently empowered actors, power thus may have important consequences without being associated with manifest conflict. The behavioural approach largely overlooks those situations where differences in power between actors are large because it focuses explicitly on manifest conflict generated through decision making. It concentrates, instead, on cases where these differences are relatively small. — Walter Korpi, The Iceberg of Power below the Surface, 6 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Social harmony and redressing historical injustice can coexist through equal-power intergroup contact. — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations:…, 111; Intergroup violence can erupt without prior animosity when institutions fail and trust collapses — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 655; Rising subordinate power shifts superiors into moderating conflicts between subordinates. (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Large power asymmetries suppress visible conflict by lowering the weaker party’s aspirations #complicates (0.80) — Walter Korpi, The Iceberg of Power below the Surface, 6
• Rising subordinate power shifts superiors into moderating conflicts between subordinates. #complicates (0.78)