From Merriam Webster

balkanize

verb, often capitalized

bal·​kan·​ize | \ ˈbȯl-kə-ˌnīz  \
balkanized; balkanizing

Definition of balkanize

transitive verb

1: to break up (a region, a group, etc.) into smaller and often hostile units.
2: DIVIDE, COMPARTMENTALIZE, now pop culture has been balkanized; it is full of niches, with different groups watching and playing their own things— Richard Corliss

To relate it to the core subjects of this site, it is the opposite of emergence, and it breaks tension force like a leg; it is political reductionism, reducing powerful wholes, first to parts, then to ineffectual warring wholes too small to fight the real enemy.

Whether you call them the 1% or Oligarchs, they weary of our organized resistance and infuriating self-interest. Divide and conquer.