Amy Chua's seminal piece World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability argues that small ethnic minority groups often have more power than larger, poorer ethnic groups and that many times ethnic tension is a result of:

The economics enjoyed by these groups

Explanation:

In her book, Chua discusses different reasons for the market dominance of different groups. Some groups inherited market dominance because of colonial legacies and apartheid. In other cases, it may be due to the culture and family networks of these groups. For many groups there is no clear single explanation