RT Article
T1 Does ethnic diversity increase violent crime? A global analysis of homicide rates, 1995-2013
JF European journal of criminology
VO 17
IS 2
SP 175
OP 198
A1 De Soysa, Indra 1964-
A1 Noel, Carmen
A2 Noel, Carmen
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1690249285
AB Many scholars argue that diverse preferences and coordination failure stemming from high ethnic diversity results in high social frictions, leading to socio-political failure. Criminological theories suggest that crime is driven by very similar processes. The specialized literature on civil war, however, reports a diversity dividend, arguing that when two large groups (polarization) make up a society, the risk of armed violence is increased. Using data on global homicide rates from the period 1995-2013 for over 140 countries, we find that ethnic heterogeneity is associated with homicide rates in an inverted U-shape relationship. Measures of ethnic polarization confirm these results directly. The results suggests that ethnic polarization and ethnic dominance rather than diversity are what matter for personal security measured as homicide rates. The conditional effect of high diversity and income inequality is associated with lower homicide rates, results that reject the view that societal heterogeneity and income inequality drive social dislocation. Several possible intervening variables, such as unemployment among males and youth, ethnic exclusion and discrimination, good governance and institutional quality, as well as several demographic and political variables, do not affect the basic results. It seems that the heavy emphasis placed on ethnic diversity for explaining social dislocation and violence, in so far as it relates to a country's homicide rate, seems to be misplaced.
K1 Ethnic diversity
K1 Ethnic polarization
K1 Homicide rates
K1 Social inequality
DO 10.1177/1477370818775294