Techniques · Structural

Divide and rule

Setting the groups that might oppose you against each other, by favoring one, defining them against each other, or amplifying their differences, so that none has the strength or the inclination to act together.

Family Structural First documented 1933 Exploits In-group favoritism, Zero-sum bias Related fallacy False dilemma
How it works

A united opposition is dangerous; a divided one governs itself. The device manufactures the division. It gives one group a small privilege and the other a grievance, it fixes identities in law or on identity cards so that a fluid population becomes two blocs, it amplifies every dispute between them and suppresses every common cause. The groups spend their strength on each other, and the ruler is spared. Us versus them is the appeal; this is the structure built to keep the "them" pointing sideways rather than up.

Colonial administration made the method a system, and its consequences outlasted the administrators: the Belgian identity cards that fixed Hutu and Tutsi as categories in 1933 were the cards checked at the roadblocks in 1994. In labor relations the same method has a name and a manual. Exploits In Group Favoritism and Zero Sum Bias.

Historical examples

1933–1994 · Rwanda

The Belgian colonial administration introduced identity cards in 1933 that recorded each Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa, fixing as heredity what had been partly a fluid social status, and allocated education and administrative posts by category. Mahmood Mamdani's study traces the line from the colonial categories to the politics of independence and to the genocide, in which the cards identified the victims.

Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

1858–1947 · British India

After 1857 the British administration governed India through categories, religious, caste, and "martial race," that it counted in the census, recruited by, and allocated representation to, with separate electorates for Muslims from 1909. Historians differ on intent; the effect, a politics organized around the categories the state had fixed, is not in dispute, and partition followed.

Metcalf, Thomas R. Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

In advertising and commerce

1936 · labor relations

The "Mohawk Valley formula," the strike-breaking plan used by Remington Rand in 1936 and later described in a National Labor Relations Board decision, included forming a "citizens' committee" to split the community from the strikers, organizing a back-to-work movement to split the workforce, and publicizing every division. The Board found it an unfair labor practice; the formula circulated as a manual.

National Labor Relations Board. Remington Rand, Inc., 2 NLRB 626 (1937); Auerbach, Jerold S. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.

Classroom prompt

Find two groups in conflict over something small. Do they have a larger interest in common? Who benefits from their not noticing?

In the wild

Short examples of the technique at work, each with what to notice. The same examples are questions in the quiz, where the answer is not given away.

1
The company gave the day shift a bonus the night shift didn't get, and the two shifts have fought over scheduling ever since instead of over pay.

What to notice. A small privilege allocated by category turns a shared interest into a conflict between the groups.

2
Whenever the tenants' and homeowners' associations start to cooperate on the road plan, the council raises the parking-permit question that sets them against each other.

What to notice. A wedge issue deployed to prevent cooperation; the council is in every dispute and the object of none.

3
The colonial census recorded everyone by religion, allocated seats by religion, and within a generation politics ran entirely on religious lines.

What to notice. Categories fixed by the ruling power become the structure of the ruled society's conflicts.

Sources

  1. Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0691102801
  2. Metcalf, Thomas R. Ideologies of the Raj. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0521589376
  3. Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0691088952
  4. Auerbach, Jerold S. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.