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In politics and sociology, divide and rule is a strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy.
The phrase comes from the Latin "divide et impera", which translates to "divide and rule".
Effective use of this technique allows those with little real power to control those who collectively have a lot of power.
The strategy was used to great effect by administrators of vast empires, including the British, who would play one tribe against another to maintain control of their colonies with a minimal number of British troops.
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