Does Diversity Erode Social Cohesion? Social Capital and Race in British Neighbourhoods
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00692.x |
| Author | Natalia Letki |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00692.x
Does Diversity Erode Social Cohesion?
Social Capital and Race in British
Neighbourhoods
Natalia Letki
Collegium Civitas,Warsaw
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.
There is evidence that the more diverse an area is in racial terms, the less likely its
residents are to feel that they trust each other. This is an important argument and
it is important that we examine it (From a speech by David Blunkett MP, Home
Secretary, to the Institute of Public Policy Research, 7 July 2004).
Changing patterns of immigration, perceptions of the increase in numbers of
refugees and asylum seekers and social unrest in northern England in 2001 (in the
towns of Oldham and Burnley and the city of Bradford) have brought the
relationship between community cohesion and ethnic diversity to the forefront of
public and political debate. Fears about the overwhelming and negative effect of
diversity on social cohesion and national identity have been expressed by jour-
nalists and policy-makers alike. For example, David Goodhart, editor of Prospect,
targeted his February 2004 article at the detrimental impact of ethnic diversity in
modern Britain on the sense of community and solidarity among citizens, and on
the viability of the British welfare state (Goodhart, 2004), while Trevor Philips,
chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, reiterated this argument by stressing
the need for strengthening common values and ‘core Britishness’ ( Baldwin and
Rozenberg, 2004).1
However, while this public debate seems highly politicised and emotionally based,
it is important to look at the link between community cohesion and diversity in
a more systematic way. This article examines the impact of racial diversity on one
particular dimension of social cohesion: social capital. Social cohesion is usually
defined in reference to common aims and objectives, social order, social solidarity
and the sense of place attachment (Forrest and Kearns, 2001). Social capital, i.e.
‘features of social life – networks, norms and trust – that enable participants to act
together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’, constitutes therefore its key
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
100
N ATA L I A L E T K I
dimension (Putnam, 1996, p. 56, see also Forrest and Kearns, 2001; McGhee,
2003). Although social capital is a desired resource that both individuals and
communities can use for good ends (Fukuyama, 1995; Putnam, 1993a), it seems
that for social capital to emerge, a high degree of homogeneity is required:
empirical evidence suggests that communities with high levels of racial and
cultural diversity have lower levels of interpersonal trust and formal and informal
networks (Alesina and Ferrara, 2000; 2002; Costa and Kahn, 2003).
These observations prompted policy-makers to abandon the dominant approach
of multiculturalism in favour of what some call ‘a return to assimilation’ (Cheong
et al., 2005, p. 2). This shift has been reflected in major government policies as
well as in public opinion, with the current dominant political view stressing that
‘strength in diversity’ should be achieved through promoting shared values and
the creation of ‘unity from diversity’ (Cantle, 2001; Denham, 2001; McGhee,
2003). As a result, a political and social climate has emerged ‘in which asylum
seekers, migrants and refugees are demonized as undesirable, undeserving, and
overwhelming’ (Ouseley, 2004, p. 9).
Although the debate about the impact of ethnic fractionalisation on social
cohesion and social ties seems fairly developed and its impact can be noticed far
outside of academia, the empirical evidence for the eroding effect of ethnic
heterogeneity is mixed, and largely confined to American examples. Recently,
researchers investigating the impact of neighbourhood racial and ethnic compo-
sition on individuals’ attitudes and behaviour started complementing the race or
ethnicity-related predictors with the socio-economic characteristics of an area.
They present evidence that socio-economic status of a neighbourhood affects
interactions with, and attitudes towards, fellow neighbours. Disorder and poverty
negatively influence individuals’ ability and willingness to engage in social activi-
ties with neighbours; they amplify the sense of powerlessness and mistrust and
amplify inter-group prejudice and competition (Li et al., 2005; Marschall and
Stolle, 2004; Oliver and Mandelberg, 2000; Oliver and Wong, 2003; Ross et al.,
2001; Sampson et al., 1997). It is also an empirical fact that poverty and disorder
tend to be highly correlated with racial diversity (Sampson and Groves, 1989;
Sampson et al., 1997). In this article I argue that to assess properly the effect of
racial diversity on social capital, such strong correlation between diversity and low
neighbourhood status needs to be taken into account. Therefore, in explaining
levels of interaction within communities and attitudes that result from them,
deprivation should be treated as a neighbourhood characteristic that is just as
important as racial diversity.
Socio-economic inequalities, originally at the centre of investigation in political
science and sociology, have been denied importance by many researchers since
the 1980s. The ‘age of “postisms” – postmodernism, postindustrialism, poststruc-
turalism, postmarxism, postfeminism, postmaterialism’ (Evans, 1999, p. 1) has
shifted attention to mechanisms focusing on values and new social divisions. The
traditional cleavages of class and social status have been thought to be replaced by
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2008, 56(1)
D O E S D I V E R S I T Y E RO D E S O C I A L C O H E S I O N ?
101
‘new’ divisions structured around gender, ethnicity or ecology (Inglehart, 1990;
Pakulski and Waters, 1995). Although some researchers resisted and criticised this
trend (Devine et al., 2003; Erickson and Goldthorpe, 1992), the intellectual
fashion of denying ‘traditional’ social structure importance in explaining political
and civic attitudes and behaviour has swept through academia and beyond.
However, recent studies show that such a change of perspective was not fully
justified empirically, and that social inequalities and social deprivation still offer
powerful explanations of political attitudes and behaviour (Evans, 1999). This
present article will contribute to this trend reversal by demonstrating that despite
claims that cultural differences are the key issue undermining social cohesion,
socio-economic structure is far more important.
The article presents an important contribution to the current debate on social
cohesion and social capital for three main reasons: firstly, it uses a complex and
multifaceted measure of neighbourhood social capital; secondly, it tests the impact
of respondents’ actual immediate community on their attitudes; and thirdly, it
applies a methodology that overcomes the limitations of previous studies. Existing
research on social capital or social trust usually separates the individual and
community level of analysis or refers to individual-level explanations to interpret
the aggregate-level findings. Also accuracy of the empirical operationalisation of
the relationships between dimensions of social capital is frequently compromised.
This article applies a multi-level structural equation model, thus overcoming
conceptual and methodological problems of earlier investigations. Moreover, it is
the first study to analyse the effects of racial diversity on social capital in the
context of neighbourhood in Great Britain: existing literature on the topic has
been dominated by evidence from the United States.2 The main question of this
article is therefore: does racial diversity erode social capital in Britain?
The article falls into four main parts: first, I will outline the general theoretical
background to studying the relationship between a community’s social capital
and racial diversity. Second, I will introduce data and indicators. After that I will
explain the method used to explore the question about the link between social
capital and racial diversity. Fourthly, I will present the analyses and discuss their
results.
The results show that when the effects of diversity and neighbourhood depriva-
tion on social capital are modelled simultaneously, and the relationship between
neighbourhood status and racial diversity is accounted for, diversity has a negative
effect on only one – attitudinal – dimension of social capital. At the same time,
the low socio-economic status of a neighbourhood is the main factor undermin-
ing all types of...
To continue reading
Request your trial