Effect of social capital on vulnerability to violence: empirical evidence from India
- PDF / 1,393,661 Bytes
- 22 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 60 Downloads / 193 Views
Effect of social capital on vulnerability to violence: empirical evidence from India Malvika Tyagi1
© Institute for Social and Economic Change 2020
Abstract This paper is devoted to vulnerability to crime, which is a relatively neglected aspect in the literature on the Economics of crime. The India Human Development Survey data is used to empirically examine the relationship of vulnerability to crime (specifically attack or threat) with social capital, while controlling for economic status. It is found that aspects of social capital such as membership of religious or caste organizations, political connections and acquaintance with government officials play a role in determining household vulnerability to attack or threat. Furthermore, vulnerability seems to be persistent as well as higher in the survey round which was conducted around election time. Keywords Social capital · Vulnerability · Violence · India
Introduction Lederman et al. (2004) point out how both theoretical and economic literature on the economics of crime has followed along the lines laid out by Becker (1968), and hence mostly confined itself to gauging legitimate and criminal returns and the role of police and justice system to predict crime. But recently, the effect of social capital and interactions on crime has been studied, though mostly theoretically by Glaeser et al. (1996) and Rosenfeld et al. (1999) and its importance highlighted by DiIulio (1996). In order to fill this gap empirically, they measure the effect of different indicators of social capital on crime, across countries. They point out that it is traditional among political scientists and sociologists to focus on two main elements of social capital: “trust among community members and membership and participation in secular, religious and social organizations.” They also point out that these two elements are essentially measures of social capital, a complex concept, which they define as: “the set of rules, norms, obligations, reciprocity and trust which enable members to achieve their individual and collective goals.” The way in which social capital reduces crime is mainly two-pronged, one through “decreased cost of social interaction and therefore peaceful resolution of conflict” and the other by overcoming the problem of the free-rider problem of collective action, because their strong community ties equip them * Malvika Tyagi [email protected] 1
New Delhi, India
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Social and Economic Development
to do so. It must be clarified here that the sense in which the measure of social capital is employed in this paper is somewhat different from its definition as well as its two-pronged role, and also different from how it is understood in the literature, specifically that pertaining to crime, wherein the message that comes across is that it is those neighborhoods that lack social capital, that are most likely to design and produce, so to speak, criminals. This message is rooted in social disorganization theory which states that communit
Data Loading...
