Divide and Rule
A way of keeping power by creating disagreements and factions
Prevent Public from Making Common Cause
Most people have heard the terms “Divide and Rule” or “Divide & Conquer.”
The British used this technique to build and maintain their empire and even now you’ll see it still pervasive today, once you understand it fully.
a way of keeping yourself in a position of power by causing disagreements among other people so they are unable to oppose you.
the policy of not allowing subject peoples or factions to make common cause
1) Tactics:
Here are 3 tactics that can be employed:
a) Granting special benefit or blame to some, which leads to divisions.
Fund military contractor jobs in many congressional districts with the implicit threat of losing the jobs if the military projects don’t continue to receive funding.1
Corporations (like Amazon) buy off opposition by getting governments to compete for corporate jobs and tax revenue. The cooperating state or local governments get rewarded with a disproportionate amount of the revenue, while the losing governments get less or nothing. The British did this in India by setting the Muslims and Hindis against each other.
Scapegoating: the act of blaming a person or group for something bad that has happened or that someone else has done. (Often the scapegoat is in a minority position.)
b) Limiting Choice:
Those in power may prevent people from exercising choice by giving only 1 option or instructing people that they must choose the lesser evil.
In an environment where people feel they lack control, they may develop “Learned Helplessness” — giving up because they believe they lack the ability to achieve a goal — “There is nothing I can do" mentality.
c) Causing disagreements among people so that they are unable to oppose you.
One way of dividing people is to use a wedge issue - often a controversial or divisive nature, which splits apart a demographic or population group. Wedge issues can be advertised or publicly aired in an attempt to strengthen the unity of a population, with the goal of enticing polarized individuals to give support to an opponent or to withdraw their support entirely out of disillusionment. The use of wedge issues gives rise to wedge politics. Wedge issues are also known as hot-button or third-rail issues.
2) History:
The “Divide and Rule” strategy is commonly used by corporate psychopaths and was used by
3) Academic Research:
Alder, Simon and Wang, Yikai, Divide and Rule: How Political Elites Polarize Society (June 13, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3769435 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3769435
Posner, Eric A., Spier, Kathryn E., and Vermuele, Adrian. Divide and Conquer.
Senator Bernie Sanders might as well accept funding for F-35s in his own state because otherwise some other district will get the benefit. This is a classic game-theory “prisoner's dilemma.” Unless a politician is able to persuade other politicians not to accept the contractor basing jobs in their district, they will “lose” by opposing the program on principle.