Does Diversity Erode Social Cohesion? Conceptual and Methodological Issues
| Date | 01 October 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.12068 |
| Published date | 01 October 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
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P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 4 VO L 6 2 , 5 7 3 – 5 9 5
doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12068
Does Diversity Erode Social Cohesion?
Conceptual and Methodological Issues
Gal Ariely
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Robert Putnam’s ‘hunkering down’ thesis regarding the negative effect of ethnic diversity on trust and willingness to
participate in collective life launched an ongoing debate concerning the ramifications of diversity for social cohesion.
Findings regarding the way in which diversity affects social cohesion are discrepant, some scholars arguing that diversity
has negative effects on social cohesion and others indicating insignificant or even positive effects.This study claims that
these conflicting conclusions are explained by the vagueness of social cohesion – a multidimensional concept.
Analyzing cross-national survey data from 42 European countries, it demonstrates how diversity is variably related to
the diverse dimensions and operationalization of social cohesion. While diversity is not associated with the most
commonly adduced dimension of social cohesion – namely, interpersonal trust – it does possess a negative relation to
two other dimensions of social cohesion: belonging and social solidarity. Even these negative relations are not
consistent across different operationalizations of belonging and social solidarity, however. In the face of increasing
concerns regarding the implications of diversity for social cohesion, these findings demonstrate that caution must be
exercised when examining the relations between these two phenomena.
Keywords: social cohesion; diversity
John Stuart Mill’s adage that ‘Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up
of different nationalities.Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and
speak different languages, the united public opinion necessary to the working of represen-
tative government can not exist’ has become very popular recently (Mill, 1958 [1861] , pp.
232–3). This argument for the necessity of ‘fellow feeling’ and ‘united public opinion’ is
reflected in modern concern that the increasing diversity caused by immigration reduces
the conditions necessary for ‘social cohesion’ – a fashionable buzzword in the discussion of
immigration and integration policy (Holtug and Mason, 2010).
Similar apprehensions have also generated greater research into the links between
diversity and social cohesion. Robert Putnam’s (2007) ‘hunkering down’ thesis concerning
the negative effects of ethnic diversity on trust and the willingness to participate in
collective life launched an ongoing debate regarding the implications of diversity for social
cohesion.To date, none of these studies has produced robust results.While some have found
diversity to have negative effects in disparate countries (e.g. Agirdag et al., 2011; Fieldhouse
and Cutts, 2010; Laurence, 2011) or across countries (Anderson and Paskeviciute, 2006;
Delhey and Newton, 2005), others have not (e.g. Gesthuizen et al., 2009; Hooghe et al.,
2009; Savelkoul et al., 2011; Sturgis et al., 2011).
In light of these contrary results, several scholars have pointed out conceptual and
methodological flaws in the study of diversity and social cohesion. Marc Hooghe (2007), for
example, has argued that, in much of the literature, generalized trust is used to measure the
concepts of social capital and social cohesion – an operationalization that does not fully
account for the comprehensive meaning of these phenomena. Similarly, Allison Harell and
© 2013 The Author. Political Studies © 2013 Political Studies Association
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G A L A R I E LY
Dietlind Stolle (2010) claim that other dimensions of social cohesion – such as norms and
solidarity – must be addressed, while Eric Uslaner (2004) has demonstrated the ways in
which general trust differs from social capital, the variant conceptualizations directly
affecting the results regarding the effect of diversity. In a recent review of the ‘hunkering
down’ thesis, Alejandro Portes and Erik Vickstrom (2011) assert that the key for under-
standing the inconsistent empirical findings regarding the relations between diversity and
social cohesion are the conceptual and methodological gaps in the ways social cohesion is
defined and measured.
This article does not attempt to decipher the link between diversity and social cohesion
or to offer a new conceptualization and operationalization for social cohesion – or even
claim to solve the methodological shortcomings of previous studies. Its principal aim is to
demonstrate how the relations between diversity and social cohesion vary according to the
dimensions of social cohesion examined and the indexes employed for their measurement.
I demonstrate that the relationship between diversity and social cohesion derived from a
single data set depends on the specific definition of social cohesion adopted.Thus while one
dimension of social cohesion may not be related to diversity, other aspects may exhibit
either negative or positive relations.
In the first section, I review Putnam’s ‘hunkering down’ thesis and the empirical studies
that have examined the relations between diversity and social cohesion on the community
and national level. This survey illustrates that the inconsistent relations between diversity
and social cohesion appear to be a function of the dimensions of social cohesion selected
by each individual study. I then discuss, in brief, the multidimensional nature of social
cohesion, with the empirical illustration based on international survey data to allow for the
measurement of diversity at the country level. Using data from the European Values Survey
2008 across 42 countries, I demonstrate how some forms of diversity are unrelated to
measures of general trust while other dimensions of social cohesion do evince a link with
diversity. Thus, for example, while ethnic and linguistic fractionalization at the country level
is negatively related to solidarity measured as concern for disadvantaged groups in one’s
country, it is unrelated to other measures of solidarity. Similarly, ethnic and linguistic
fractionalization at the country level was found to be negatively related to one measure of
belonging but not to the other. In the conclusion, I analyze these findings in order to
critique the ongoing discourse regarding diversity and social cohesion.
Putnam’s ‘Hunkering Down’ Hypothesis
Robert Putnam’s studies during the 1990s and 2000s accentuated the importance of
social capital – and in particular social trust – for maintaining prosperous societies,
proposing that ‘social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustworthi-
ness’ (Putnam, 2007, p. 137) constitute facilitators of peaceful collective action, inclusive-
ness, tolerance, confidence in institutions and political participation (Putnam, 2000). Social
capital research has paid especial attention to interpersonal trust, which, it is argued,
comprises an important dimension of social capital. As Uslaner (2002, p. 1) asserts, trust is
the ‘chicken soup of moral life’. In light of this circumstance, numerous studies have
examined the factors shaping social capital, and social trust in particular (for a review, see
Nannestad, 2008; Newton, 2007).
© 2013 The Author. Political Studies © 2013 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2014, 62(3)
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Among these, Putnam (2007) has suggested that diversity is strongly related to lower
levels of social capital.1 His ‘hunkering down’ hypothesis suggests that diversity has different
effects from those propounded in contact and conflict theories. In the short term, diversity
does not lead to greater inter-group contact between people from different backgrounds,
nor does it reinforce the solidarity of the in-group faced with the growing presence of
out-groups. Rather, Putnam argued, higher levels of diversity reduce both in-group and
out-group solidarity – a process related to changes in the sense of collective identity.
According to Putnam, one of the significant factors that shape social capital is related to
social identity. This, in turn, influences social distance – people’s sense of who they are.
Diversity impacts on the dynamic of social identity for both majority and minority groups
because it affects the sense and meaning of ‘we’ for both groups. While Putnam (2007, p.
159) acknowledges that ‘the linkage between identity and social capital is only beginning
to be explored’, he suggests that the ‘hunkering down’ effect derives from shifts in the sense
of social identity. Changes induced by increased immigration directly affect the social
identity of the receiving communities; in the short term diversity reduces the sense of
community.Thus, diversity ‘seems to trigger not in-group/out-group division, but anomie
or social isolation. In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear
to “hunker down” – that is, to pull in like a turtle’ (Putnam, 2007, p. 149, emphasis in
original). Evidence provided by the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey sup-
ports this thesis. Inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life,
distrust their neighbors and engage less in public life. They are also less likely to regard
themselves as possessing political efficacy, place less trust in their local leaders and volunteer/
give to charity less.
Further studies conducted in the US also corroborate...
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