Due to migrations, and cultural evolution of different societal subgroups, many states today face the challenge of enforcing laws on a diverse set of population.

The reason why diversity and political stability can sometimes come head to head, is because of competition over economic resources, and cultural values.

Divisions between humans can occur across linguistic, ethnic, sectarian, geographic or ideological lines.

In fact, the number of sovereign states in the world is only 195, while there is much greater number of languages, religions and ethnicities across the world. This means most states have to host diverse populations.

Because of diversity, it can be hard to build a meritocratic society, without discrimination and with equal opportunity for all.

In terms of culture, the values of the majority will have a tendency to dominate minority values. It is a similar dynamic we see in many social settings. There is often peer pressure to conform to certain expectations tacitly led by a majority.

Societies will see this exact same phenomenon, with the values of the majority emerging as dominant. Values manifest into behaviors, which create societal norms, and norms eventually become laws when legislatures argue about laws and enact them.

Discrimination often emerges as an obstacle that can take different forms.

There can be taste-based discrimination, with parts of the private and public hiring people who look and think like them for aesthetic or personal reasons.

There can be statistical-based discrimination, when certain groups are stereotyped in ways due to generalization of past statistics, leading to some members of groups to not be selected for an opportunity

There can also be irrational prejudice out of ignorance, also known as xenophobia. In any way, all this discrimination can lead to inadequate socio-economic outcomes.

In order to address these issues, there are often a few potential scenarios that unravel.

Establishing a federal or decentralized administrative structure, with different levels of government that can help account for demographic diversity that correlates well with natural geographic barriers. The United States, Russia, Brazil, Iraq and Nigeria are all examples of federal states that did so in part due to demographic diversity.

In situations where the differences do not occur across geographic lines, some countries use quotas for different groups as a measure to allocate influence across different groups. Countries like Lebanon, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, or India. In the United States, Or Malaysia affirmative action laws, which provides advantages in employments to historically disadvantaged groups, are also an example of such quotas.

Another option in diverse state is to promote policies of assimilation. This can range from promoting unified education books, cultural fluidity, intergroup exchanges and marriages, to the promotion of a national culture.

Certain countries have done a good job at preserving multiple national languages that all pay tribute to different aspects of their cultural legacies.

For example, Albania promoted the Albanization of its culture in order to reduce any sectarian division, with the enforcement of secular names for babyborn to prevent the differentiation between Muslims and Christians. While this measure was viewed as authoritarian by some, it helped reduce discrimination across the country.

Another possible course of action is inaction – leaving human interaction to take their course naturally. In Guyana, there are no formal quotas or power-sharing structure between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese. Instead, the pendulum swifts from one direction to another to ethnic-related voting patterns and coalition formation that balance each other out, since both groups account for about a third of the country’s population each.

In certain Latin American countries, ignoring historical pasts and brushing them under the carpet has sometimes led to silent discrimination that is not discussed much at the societal and political level. This has been reported to be the case for many Afro-Brazilians, who have remained at the margin of development in the country despite its overall advancement and innovation over the past century.

Promoting social harmony in diverse societies involves promoting a solution that reduces discrimination.

Unfortunately, when all these other measures of allocating power in diverse societies fail, the outcome often ends up being dictated by force. The strongest ends up imposing their culture on others. This outcome comes with subjugation, violence and erasure of cultures.