Politics is rarely, if ever, a two-player game. Multiple opponents vie with one another, as well as with the state, over power and resources. They are motivated by competition as well as by the need for cooperation – keeping a careful eye on each other while simultaneously attempting to gain support and assistance through a combination of cajoling and compromise, threats and personal intrigue. This insight is not new; in 1588 Hurault recognized the state's ability to “divide and rule” with respect to Catherine de Medici in France. Similarly, Aristotle wrote that one of the strategies by which a tyrant could preserve his rule was to keep his subjects preoccupied with fighting each other. Clearly, determining when opposition elites are willing to mobilize the masses and make sustained demands for political change requires an examination of three factors: the relationships between opposition groups and the state, the relationships between competing opposition groups, and state elites' ability to manipulate these relations.

Yet, in the wide and disparate literature that examines “contentious politics,” the incumbents' ability to divide and rule, creating competition between the opposition groups, is not examined adequately.