Public Goods Provision in Divided Societies *

We develop a probabilistic-voting model of public goods provision in divided societies. The society is divided into multiple groups based on identity, and the government provides a generic public good and a group-specific public good for each group. Voters derive utility from public good specific to their own group and disutility from public goods provided to other groups, and the extent of disutility is a measure of intergroup identity distance.

Political influence depends on the share of persuadable swing voters. When all groups are equally influential, electoral competition replicates the social planner's allocation. As influence varies, equilibrium provision of both generic and group-specific public goods diverges from the first-best.

When groups with a larger tax base (richer and/or larger) are more politically influential on average, there is an undersupply of both kinds of public goods, and when groups with a lower tax base are more politically influential, there is an oversupply. Stronger inter-group animosity dampens identity-good promises; greater tolerance amplifies them. Embedding groups in a social-identity network shows that central groups secure larger identity-good shares, whereas higher overall identity distances reduce identity-good provision for all.