Suchergebnisse

The debate on causes and consequences of social capital has recently been complemented by an investigation into factors that erode it. Various scholars concluded that diversity, and racial heterogeneity in particular, is damaging for the sense of community, interpersonal trust and formal and informal interactions. However, most of this research does not adequately account for the negative effect of a community's low socio-economic status on neighbourhood interactions and attitudes. This article is to date the first empirical examination of the impact of racial context on various dimensions of social capital in British neighbourhoods. Findings show that low neighbourhood status is the key element undermining all dimensions of social capital, while the eroding effect of racial diversity is limited.

AbstractThis paper presents evidence that the relevance of incentives to co‐produce depends on the social‐psychological context under which actors operate. We propose that context (including community attachment, trust in local authorities, ethnic diversity, unemployment level, and population density) moderates effect of incentives (utility of the co‐produced service, monetary and reputational rewards, and social norms). Through a survey experiment carried out in 593 urban locations across 13 countries, we show that willingness to co‐produce increases with community attachment and decreases with ethnic diversity of the local area. The relevance of utility and social norms as determinants of willingness to co‐produce depends on the social‐psychological context. Reputational and monetary rewards have limited effect, and their relation to the context is less clear. All incentives are largely irrelevant when actors operate in cooperation‐conducive circumstances, where co‐production is a value in itself. However, their importance as "tools" to encourage co‐production arises under challenging contexts.

AbstractOne of the key reasons for the scholarly and policy concern about the rising levels of ethnic diversity is its apparently detrimental effect on the production of public goods. Although numerous studies have tackled that issue, there is still much ambiguity as to the precise micro‐level mechanisms underpinning this relationship. In this article, a novel theoretical explanation for this relationship is proposed, building on the social resistance framework. This proposition is tested using a new cross‐sectional public opinion survey covering 14,536 respondents in 817 neighbourhoods across 11 Central Eastern European countries. Analysing national minorities defined by postwar border changes means one can overcome the endogeneity problem faced by research based on immigrant groups. The findings show that it is the combination of a minority group's discrimination and its spatial clustering that makes minorities reluctant to contribute to public goods. The article constitutes a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to the research on the effects of diversity on public goods provision.