scispace - formally typeset
Journal Article•DOI•

Caste-Based Crimes and Economic Status: Evidence from India

Smriti Sharma1•
World Institute for Development Economics Research1
01 Dec 2014-Social Science Research Network-

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated whether changes in relative material standards of living between the SCs/STs and upper castes were associated with changes in the incidence of crimes against SCs and STs.

Abstract: Crimes against the historically marginalized Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC and ST) by the upper castes in India represent an extreme form of prejudice and discrimination. In this paper, we investigate whether changes in relative material standards of living between the SCs/STs and upper castes – as measured by the ratio of consumption expenditures of SCs/STs to that of upper castes – are associated with changes in the incidence of crimes against SCs/STs. Based on the hierarchical social structure implied by the caste system, we posit that an increase in the expenditure ratio is positively correlated with the incidence of crimes committed by the upper castes against the lower castes. Using official district level crime data for the period 2001–2010, we find a positive association between crimes and expenditure of SC/ST vis-a-vis the upper castes. Further, distinguishing between violent and non-violent crimes, we find it is the violent crimes that are responsive to changes in economic gaps. Moreover, this relationship is on account of changes in the upper castes’ economic well-being rather than changes in the economic position of the SCs and STs.

Summary (3 min read)

Jump to: [1 Introduction] – [2.1 The Indian Caste System] – [2.2 Hate Crimes] – [3.1 Crime Data] – [3.2 Explanatory Variables] – [3.3 Summary Statistics] – [3.4 Empirical Specification] – [4.1 Regression Results] – [4.2 Some Further Questions] and [5 Discussion and Conclusion]

1 Introduction

  • In India, ex-untouchable castes and several tribal groups continue to be subjected to discrimination, economic and social exclusion and a stigmatized identity (e.g. Thorat 1979; Deshpande 2011; Navsarjan Trust 2010).
  • Therefore, which of these effects dominate constitutes an interesting empirical question.
  • Please see Section 5 for some such references.
  • This is among the first studies to quantitatively analyze the phenomenon of crimes targeted at the SC/ST groups.

2.1 The Indian Caste System

  • The ‘caste system’ is an arrangement of the Hindu population into several thousand groups called ‘jatis’ .
  • Borooah et al. (2005) find that job reservations succeeded in increasing representation of SCs/STs in regular salaried employment by 5 percentage points compared to what it would have been otherwise.
  • The authors will use both terms depending on the context.
  • ‘Others’ is a reasonable approximation of the upper caste category.

2.2 Hate Crimes

  • The term hate crime refers to “unlawful, violent, destructive, or threatening conduct in which the perpetrator is motivated by prejudice toward the victim’s putative social group” (Green et al., 2001, p.480).
  • Disciplines in the social sciences offer distinctive theories explaining hate crimes and this section summarizes the theoretical and empirical evidence.
  • Their main result states that economic improvements for a group will lead to greater violence perpetrated against that group if it is relatively poor and the greater the proportion of potential victims as compared to aggressors in the group.
  • Jacobs and Wood (1999) investigate the relationship between economic and political competition and inter-racial murders for 165 US cities.

3.1 Crime Data

  • The crime data used in this paper are from the annual publication ‘Crime in India’ by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Government of India.
  • A ‘non-cognizable’ offence is an offence in which police cannot register an FIR, investigate or arrest without prior permission from the court.
  • 8 belongs to the SC/ST group and the offender to a non-SC/ST group.
  • There are two main types of crimes: those reported under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and those that are registered under the Special and Local Laws (SLL).
  • In the absence of such data, this paper makes use of the best available nationally representative data and the authors believe that is a good starting point, especially since quantitative evidence on crimes against SCs and STs is limited.

3.2 Explanatory Variables

  • Since their unit of analysis is the district, district-level information on the explanatory variables is calculated from the large-scale household surveys conducted once in five years by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO).
  • In developing countries, expenditure serves as a good proxy for income for several reasons.
  • Secondly, wage or earnings data, even when reliable, may not account for days of employment and seasonality of work.
  • Falk et al. (2011) find unemployment rates to positively affect violent and non-violent right wing extremist crimes in Germany.
  • Based on this reasoning, the authors would expect states with greater electoral competition (larger effective number of parties) to be more sympathetic to the cause of the SC/ST groups thereby leading to lesser violence against them.

3.3 Summary Statistics

  • Table 1 contains the summary statistics of the district-level data for each of the two periods separately as well as for the full data.
  • Among the IPC crimes, the authors make a distinction between ‘crimes against body’ and ‘non-body crimes’.
  • The general crime rate which measures crimes where the victims are non-SC/ST- defined as total IPC crimes in the district less IPC crimes against SC/ST per 100000 non-SC/ST population- is 1544.
  • In terms of broad state-level statistics.
  • 46 percent of the population is illiterate, 20 percent have completed primary education, 24 percent have completed secondary education and only 10 percent has completed higher secondary and higher levels of education.

3.4 Empirical Specification

  • The authors main empirical specification uses a linear fixed effects regression model.
  • The general form of the estimating equation is: ydt = α1 + α2edt +.
  • The authors primary variable of interest edt is logarithm of the ratio of expenditure of SCs/STs to upper castes.
  • District fixed effects δd control for the time-invariant districtspecific under-reporting of crime, long-standing caste relations in the district etc.
  • Since the authors have group-wise expenditures, they do not control for overall expenditure.

4.1 Regression Results

  • In column 1, the dependent variable is the SC/ST total crime rate.
  • In column 2, the dependent variable is the SC/ST IPC crime rate.
  • Results from Table 2 and Table 3 jointly show that firstly, while relative expenditure is an important determinant of caste-based crimes, it is the perpetrator characteristics and not the victim characteristics driving the results.
  • These results suggest that it is the non-body crimes component of the IPC crimes against SC/ST that is responsive to changes in relative expenditure and upper castes’ expenditure.
  • In column 1, the main explanatory variable of interest is the relative expenditure between SC/ST and upper castes, the coefficient of which is positive and significant.

4.2 Some Further Questions

  • This section discusses some questions and concerns that might follow from the results section and addresses how the authors mitigate these concerns.
  • The idea is that if the relative economic status of caste groups is also correlated with general crimes in the district, then the authors cannot conclude that it is only crimes against SC/ST that are uniquely linked to relative group economic positions.
  • If this reverse causality exists, then their effects are overestimated and provide an upper bound of the true estimates.
  • Bhagat (2009) using 2001 Indian Census data documents that 62 percent of the internal migration in India is in the form of intra-district migration.
  • Firstly, reporting is expected to a function of victim characteristics but what is explaining the crime rate in their results are not victim but perpetrator characteristics (Table 3).

5 Discussion and Conclusion

  • This paper provides one of the first analyses of crimes against Scheduled Castes and Tribes in India with a view to understanding the effect of a change in the gap between and mob violence against blacks during 1910-30 experienced greater levels of black out-migration as compared to other counties.
  • 19 upper and lower castes’ standard of living on the victimization of the SC/ST community.
  • Dalits are attacked so that they can be taught a “lesson” for aspiring to higher standards by being more educated, acquiring more wealth and indulging in more conspicuous consumption.
  • Levin and McDevitt (1993) also argue that hate crimes have a more deleterious effect since victims of such crimes are ‘inter- 20 crimes may exacerbate existing tensions between groups and could escalate to situations of group-level conflict (Levin and Rabrenovic, 2001).
  • A report discussing the performance of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 finds that at the end of 2007, 79 percent of cases remained pending for trial at criminal courts showing no significant improvement over a pendency rate of 82.5 percent in 2001 (National Coalition for Strengthening SCs and STs PoA Act, 2010).

Did you find this useful? Give us your feedback

...read more

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

CDE
May 2012
HATE CRIMES IN INDIA: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF VIOLENCE
AND ATROCITIES AGAINST SCHEDULED
CASTES AND SCHEDULED TRIBES
SMRITI SHARMA
Email: smriti@econdse.org
Department of Economics
Delhi School of Economics
Working Paper No. 213
Centre for Development Economics
Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics
Hate Crimes in India: An Economic
Analysis of Violence and Atrocities against
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes
Smriti Sharma
∗
Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics
December, 2013
Abstract
Crimes against the historically marginalized Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes (SC/ST) by the upper castes in India represent an extreme form of prejudice
and discrimination. In this paper, we investigate the effect of changes in relative
material standards of living between the SC/STs and upper castes - as measured
by the ratio of consumption expenditures of SC/STs to that of upper castes -
on changes in the incidence of crimes against SC/STs. Based on the hierarchical
social structure implied by the caste system, we posit that an improvement in the
economic position of lower castes relative to the upper castes is positively correlated
with the incidence of crimes committed by the upper castes against the lower castes.
Using official district level crime data for the period 2001-10, we find a positive
association between crimes and expenditure of SC/ST vis-`a-vis the upper castes
such that a widening of the economic gap between groups is associated with a
decrease in caste-based crimes. Moreover, this effect is driven by changes in the
upper castes’ economic well-being rather than changes in the economic position of
the lower castes and tribes.
JEL classification: J15, K42
Keywords: Hate Crimes, Castes, India
∗
Email: smriti@econdse.org. Address for correspondence: Department of Economics, Delhi School
of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007. I am grateful to my advisors Ashwini Deshpande and
Parikshit Ghosh for their excellent guidance. Thanks are also due to Deepti Goel, Jeffrey Nugent, J.V.
Meenakshi, Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay, Jared Rubin, Saurabh Singhal, Willa Friedman and participants
at the PacDev 2013, IRES 2012 Workshop, ISNIE 2012, WEAI 2012, Delhi School of Economics, Indian
Statistical Institute and Jawaharlal Nehru University for their comments, and to officials at the National
Crimes Records Bureau for providing the data and clarifying my queries. All remaining errors are mine.
1 Introduction
In India, ex-untouchable castes and several tribal groups continue to be subjected to
discrimination, economic and social exclusion and a stigmatized identity (e.g. Thorat
1979; Deshpande 2011; Navsarjan Trust 2010). Additionally, similar to hate crimes in
other parts of the world, these groups have been victims of bias-motivated crimes and
atrocities at the hands of the upper castes. Atrocities against lower castes routinely take
the form of rape of women, abuse by police personnel, harassment of lower caste vil-
lage council heads, illegal land encroachments, forced evictions and so on (Human Rights
Watch, 1999). These instances are in blatant violation of the Indian constitution that
abolished untouchability and upholds the ideal of equality among all citizens. Subse-
quently, there have been other provisions such as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which specifically target such hate crimes.
In 2006, acknowledging the gravity of the problem, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh equated the practice of untouchability to that of apartheid.
1
In this paper, we analyze crimes against the historically disadvantaged Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes (ex-untouchables and marginalized tribes, SCs and STs
respectively) by the upper castes to understand the mechanisms that cause crimes based
on group identity to occur repeatedly. The objective of this study is to analyze whether
regional variations in the incidence of violence by the upper castes against the lower castes
are systematically linked to variations in relative group economic outcomes of lower castes
and tribes and upper castes. Based on the hierarchical social structure implied by the
caste system such that the upper castes have traditionally been economically better-off
than the lower castes with resulting social dominance, we posit that an improvement in
the economic position of lower castes relative to the upper castes is positively correlated
with the incidence of crimes committed by the upper castes against the lower castes.
Theoretically, an improvement in the relative economic status of SCs and STs as
compared to upper castes could lead to either a decrease or an increase in the incidence
of caste-based crimes. It could lead to a decrease in caste-based crimes on account of
various factors. One, an improvement in the relative economic position of lower castes
could result in an increased ability to defend themselves against physical harm by the
upper castes by investing in better security measures. Two, it could lend them greater
confidence to report crimes to the police which could lead to a reduction in future crimes.
2
1
Rahman, M. “Indian Leader Likens Caste System to Apartheid Regime”. The Guardian, Dec. 28,
2006.
2
Iyer et al. (2012) find that the political empowerment of women by way of higher mandated repre-
sentation at local government levels induces strong positive and significant effects on reporting of crimes
by women.
2
Three, an improvement in their bargaining power could lead to the upper castes having
greater respect for the low castes. On the other hand, the economic empowerment of
historically marginalized SCs and STs could increase the incidence of caste-based crimes
in the following ways: one, they could be perceived as more attractive targets for violence
especially where the motivation is to extract some form of economic surplus; two, they
may be perceived as a threat to the established social, economic and political position of
the upper castes. This could lead to greater incidence of crimes against lower castes by
the upper castes as a means of asserting their superiority and expressing their frustration
at the shift in status quo. Therefore, which of these effects dominate constitutes an
interesting empirical question.
While there is literature from India exploring the relationship between murders and
female-male ratios (Dreze and Khera, 2000), crime and inequality (Sharma, 2011), effect
of economic reforms on murders (Prasad, 2012), natural disasters and crime (Roy, 2010),
effect of female political representation on crimes against women (Iyer et al., 2012) and
the effect of rainfall shocks on domestic violence and dowry deaths (Sekhri and Storey-
gard, 2013), crimes against SCs and STs remain under-researched. This paper is among
the first to analyze data on crimes committed against SCs and STs. This is largely fa-
cilitated by the fact that starting 2001, official data on such crimes became available at
the level of the district. To the best of my knowledge, the only other existing piece of
research studying crimes against SC/ST groups is Bros and Couttenier (2012). Using
cross-sectional district-level crime data for 2001, they find crimes against SC/ST groups
to be higher in districts that have greater commonality of water sources. Common water
sources imply water sharing between castes which is considered ritually polluting for the
upper castes- more so in rural areas- and is often countered with acts of violence against
the lower castes.
3
Our study investigates a different hypothesis and exploits the panel
structure of the data through which fixed unobservable factors can be controlled.
Our paper can be considered closest in terms of motivation to Mitra and Ray (2013)
inasmuch as they too consider the relationship between group-wise economic progress and
inter-group conflict. Using Hindu-Muslim riots data for India, they find that an improve-
ment in Muslims’ well-being leads to an increase in Hindu-Muslim riots while Hindus’
well-being has no significant effect. However, there are two crucial differences between
the two studies. Firstly, they analyze communal riots, which represent violence involv-
ing a large group of people, while we study individually targeted caste-based violence.
3
The Economic and Political Weekly regularly features incident reports about caste-based violence.
A common theme in all such reports is that the source of aggression lies in the fact that lower castes
frequently access sites such as tea stalls, cinema halls, places of worship and other common spaces that
were earlier the domain of only the dominant castes. Please see Section 5 for some such references.
3
Secondly, and more importantly, their data do not allow separation of perpetrators and
victims by religion, except by inference, whereas in our data, the identification between
victims (SC/ST) and offenders (non-SC/ST) is clear from the start. Thus, our study
is a new contribution to the discussion of group-based violence in the Indian context.
However, there is an extensive social science literature from the United States that has
studied racial violence and this paper builds on that literature.
Using district level official data on crimes against SCs/STs and per capita expenditures
as a proxy for material standard of living, we find that the incidence of caste violence
is positively correlated with the ratio of expenditures of lower castes and tribes to that
of upper castes. Dividing the crimes into predominantly violent crimes and non-violent
crimes, we find that changes in relative material standards of living between groups lead to
changes in violent crimes aimed at extracting some form of economic surplus or property
from the victims. Moreover, this effect is driven by changes in the upper castes’ economic
well-being rather than changes in the economic position of the lower castes and tribes.
Although discrimination has largely been discussed in the context of labour markets
and access to public goods, this is among the first studies to quantitatively analyze
the phenomenon of crimes targeted at the SC/ST groups. Since crimes committed by
individuals belonging to non-scheduled groups against SC/ST individuals fall under the
broad category of hate crimes, this paper will be nested in that literature while also
drawing from the general crime literature.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a background
of the existing inequalities on account of the caste system and a review of the hate
crimes literature. Section 3 describes the dataset, summary statistics and the empirical
framework. Section 4 presents the results and Section 5 discusses and concludes.
2 Related Literature
2.1 The Indian Caste System
The ‘caste system’ is an arrangement of the Hindu population into several thousand
groups called ‘jatis’ (castes). These groups have emerged from the ancient varna system
(also translated as caste) according to which society was divided into initially four, later
five, hereditary, endogamous, mutually exclusive and occupation-specific groups. At the
top of the varna system were the ‘Brahmins’ (priests and teachers) and the ‘Kshatriyas’
(warriors and royalty), followed by ‘Vaishyas’ (traders, merchants and moneylenders) and
finally the ‘Shudras’ (engaged in menial labour and low-end jobs). Over time, the Shudras
4
Figures (7)
Citations
More filters
Economics Of Discrimination

[...]

Sebastian Ehrlichmann
01 Jan 2016

1,391 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India.

[...]

Mitchell Young1•
London School of Economics and Political Science1
01 Jan 2006-Nations and Nationalism

408 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Caste and development: Contemporary perspectives on a structure of discrimination and advantage

[...]

David Mosse1•
SOAS, University of London1
22 Jun 2018-World Development
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the modern life of caste in society, economy and development, and find that caste has been treated as an archaic system and source of historical disadvantage due compensation through affirmative action in ways that overlook its continuing importance as a structure of advantage and of discrimination in the modern economy.
Abstract: Inherited caste identity is an important determinant of life opportunity for a fifth of the world’s population, but is not given the same significance in global development policy debates as gender, race, age, religion or other identity characteristics. This review asks why addressing caste-based inequality and discrimination does not feature in intergovernmental commitments such as the Sustainable Development Goals, and whether it should. Taking India as its focus, it finds that caste has been treated as an archaic system and source of historical disadvantage due compensation through affirmative action in ways that overlook its continuing importance as a structure of advantage and of discrimination in the modern economy, especially post-liberalization from the 1990s. A body of recent literature from anthropology, economics, history and political science is used to explore the modern life of caste in society, economy and development. Questions are asked about caste as social hierarchy, the role of caste in post-liberalization rural inequality, in urban labor markets and in the business economy, and the effect of policies of affirmative action in public-sector education and employment. Caste is found to be a complex institution, simultaneously weakened and revived by current economic and political forces; it is a contributor to persisting national socioeconomic and human capital disparities, and has major impacts on subjective wellbeing. Caste effects are not locational; they travel from the village to the city and into virtually all markets. Caste persists in the age of the market because of its advantages – its discriminations allow opportunity hoarding for others; and the threat of the advancement of subordinated groups provokes humiliating violence against them. The evidence points to the need for policy innovation to address market and non-market discrimination and to remove barriers, especially in the informal and private sector; and to ensure caste has its proper place in the global development policy debate.

93 citations

Cites background from "Caste-Based Crimes and Economic Sta..."

  • ...…elections) so threatens the relational standing of adjacent caste groups.11 Indeed, using a decade’s district-level crime data (2001–2010) Sharma (2015) shows that increases in violent hate crimes correlate with the narrowing gap between the standard of living of Dalits and dominant…...

    [...]

Posted Content•
Inequality and crime

[...]

Morgan Kelly
01 Nov 2000-Research Papers in Economics
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the relationship between inequality and crime using data from urban counties and find that inequality has no effect on property crime but a strong and robust impact on violent crime, with an elasticity above 0.5.
Abstract: This paper considers the relationship between inequality and crime using data from urban counties. The behavior of property and violent crime are quite different. Inequality has no effect on property crime but a strong and robust impact on violent crime, with an elasticity above 0.5. By contrast, poverty and police activity have significant effects on property crime, but little on violent crime. Property crime is well explained by the economic theory of crime, while violent crime is better explained by strain and social disorganization theories.

68 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Understanding Economic Inequality Through the Lens of Caste

[...]

Hari Bapuji1, Snehanjali Chrispal1•
University of Melbourne1
01 Mar 2020-Journal of Business Ethics
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use insights from the caste system to elaborate on three elements of economic inequality: uneven dispersions in resource endowments, uneven access to productive resources and opportunities, and uneven rewards to resource contributions.
Abstract: Research on economic inequality has largely focused on understanding the relationship between organizations and inequality but has paid limited attention to the role of institutions in the creation and maintenance of inequality. In this article, we use insights from the caste system—an institution that perpetuates socio-economic inequalities and limits human functions—to elaborate on three elements of economic inequality: uneven dispersions in resource endowments, uneven access to productive resources and opportunities, and uneven rewards to resource contributions. We argue that economic inequalities persist because these three different elements of inequality feed from and reinforce each other. Our study underscores the potential of the caste lens to inform research on economic inequality as well as organizational theory and practice.

39 citations

Cites background from "Caste-Based Crimes and Economic Sta..."

  • ...This also perpetuates the notion of ‘secondary victimization’, where the broader community from the oppressed caste experiences defenselessness and angst due to recurrent crimes against them (Sharma, 2015)....

    [...]

  • ...Crimes against Dalits normally go unreported due to lack of confidence in authorities, the shame associated with reporting the crime, and threat to their socioeconomic activities (Sharma, 2015)....

    [...]

References
More filters
Journal Article•DOI•
A Treatise on the Family.

[...]

Debra Friedman, Gary S. Becker
01 Nov 1982-Contemporary Sociology

5,473 citations

Monograph•DOI•
The Analysis of Household Surveys : A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy

[...]

Angus Deaton
31 Jul 1997
TL;DR: Deaton as mentioned in this paper reviewed the analysis of household survey data, including the construction of household surveys, the econometric tools useful for such analysis, and a range of problems in development policy for which this survey analysis can be applied.
Abstract: Two decades after its original publication, The Analysis of Household Surveys is reissued with a new preface by its author, Sir Angus Deaton, recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. This classic work remains relevant to anyone with a serious interest in using household survey data to shed light on policy issues. This book reviews the analysis of household survey data, including the construction of household surveys, the econometric tools useful for such analysis, and a range of problems in development policy for which this survey analysis can be applied. The author's approach remains close to the data, using transparent econometric and graphical techniques to present data in a way that can clearly inform policy and academic debates. Chapter 1 describes the features of survey design that need to be understood in order to undertake appropriate analysis. Chapter 2 discusses the general econometric and statistical issues that arise when using survey data for estimation and inference. Chapter 3 covers the use of survey data to measure welfare, poverty, and distribution. Chapter 4 focuses on the use of household budget data to explore patterns of household demand. Chapter 5 discusses price reform, its effects on equity and efficiency, and how to measure them. Chapter 6 addresses the role of household consumption and saving in economic development. The book includes an appendix providing code and programs using STATA, which can serve as a template for the users' own analysis.

4,675 citations

"Caste-Based Crimes and Economic Sta..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Finally, like in the case of agricultural households, a household is both a production and consumption unit and it is difficult to distinguish between receipts and outflows (Deaton, 1997)....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
“Effective” Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe

[...]

Markku Laakso1, Rein Taagepera2•
University of Helsinki1, University of California, Irvine2
01 Apr 1979-Comparative Political Studies
TL;DR: Laakso and Taagepera as discussed by the authors proposed a measure called effective number of parties (effective q) to measure the effect of parties' size on the stability of a political system.
Abstract: The qEffectiveq Number of Parties: qA Measure with Application to West Europeq Laakso, Markku;Taagepera, Rein Comparative Political Studies; Apr 1, 1979; 12, 1; Proouest pg. 3 “EFFECTIVE” NUMBER OF PARTIES A Measure with Application to West Europe MARKKU LAAKSO University of Helsinki REIN TAAGEPERA University of California, Irvine I s a large number of parties bound to destabilize a political system (Duverger, 1954) or is it not (e.g., Lijphart, 1968; Nilson, 1974)? Before this question can be answered, the number of parties must be operationally defined in a way that takes into account their relative size. Such a number is also needed if one wants to detect trends toward fewer or more numerous parties over time, or the effects of a proposed change in electoral rules. This article presents ways to calculate this important political variable, calculates it for I42 post-1944 elections in 15 West European countries, and analyzes its possible effect on stability. We often talk of two-party and multiparty systems. We further dis- tinguish three~ or four—party systems in some countries, and even talk (e. g., Blondel, 1969: 535) of a two-and-a-half-party system whenthere is a third party of marginal size. Mexico could be viewed as a one-and-a- half-party system because the PR1 is so much larger than all other parties. Rather than take the number of all existing parties, including even the very smallest, one visibly has a need for a number that takes into account their relative size. We will call this number the “effective number of parties,” using the word “effectiveq somewhat in the sense pressure group literature uses it when talking about “effective access” (Truman, 195]: 506), but even more in the operational sense physicists give it when they talk about effective current (Richards et al., 1960: 594), COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES. Vol. I2 No. I. April 1979 3-27 © I979 Sage Publications. Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Sage Inc.

2,668 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position

[...]

Herbert Blumer
01 Apr 1958
TL;DR: This article argued that race prejudice exists basically in a sense of group position rather than in a set of feelings which members of one racial group have toward the members of another racial group, and they proposed an approach to the study of race prejudice different from that which dominates contemporary scholarly thought on this topic.
Abstract: In this paper I am proposing an approach to the study of race prejudice different from that which dominates contemporary scholarly thought on this topic. My thesis is that race prejudice exists basically in a sense of group position rather than in a set of feelings which members of one racial group have toward the members of another racial group. This different way of viewing race prejudice shifts study and analysis from a preoccupation with feelings as lodged in individuals to a concern with the relationship of racial groups. It also shifts scholarly treatment away from individual lines of experience and focuses interest on the collective process by which a racial group comes to define and redefine another racial group. Such shifts, I believe, will yield a more realistic and penetrating understanding of race prejudice.

2,425 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Frustration and Aggression

[...]

Edwin G. Boring, John Dollard, Leonard W. Doob, Neal E. Miller, O. H. Mowrer, Robert R. Sears, C. S. Ford, Carl I. Hovland, R. T. Sollenberger 
01 Jul 1939-American Journal of Psychology
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors postulate that aggression is always a consequence of frustration and indicate manifestations of this sequence in almost every field of human behavior and interpret aggression as assuming many forms and as being affected by other psychological factors.
Abstract: The authors postulate that aggression is always a consequence of frustration. They indicate manifestations of this sequence in almost every field of human behavior and interpret aggression as assuming many forms and as being affected by other psychological factors.

2,089 citations

"Caste-Based Crimes and Economic Sta..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The frustration-aggression thesis of Dollard et al. (1939) and Hovland and Sears (1940) suggests that during periods of economic stress, there is an innate tendency to lash out against a vulnerable scapegoat, which is often an out-group that may be linked to the source of the stress....

    [...]

Related Papers (5)
The Caste-Class Association in India: An Empirical Analysis

[...]

01 Apr 2012-Asian Survey
Divya Vaid
Economic Comparison and Group Identity: Lessons from India

[...]

16 Jul 2012-Research Papers in Economics
Xavier Fontaine, Katsunori Yamada
Caste dominance and economic performance in rural India

[...]

26 Feb 2014-Economic Development and Cultural Change
Vegard Iversen, Adriaan Kalwij, Arjan Verschoor, Amaresh Dubey 
Touch thee not: Group conflict, caste power and untouchability in rural India

[...]

01 Jun 2021-Journal of Comparative Economics
Indraneel Dasgupta, Sarmistha Pal
Caste and Occupational Structure in Central India

[...]

01 Oct 1962-Social Forces
Edwin D. Driver
Frequently Asked Questions (19)
Q1. What have the authors contributed in "Hate crimes in india: an economic analysis of violence and atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes" ?

In this paper, the authors investigate the effect of changes in relative material standards of living between the SC/STs and upper castes as measured by the ratio of consumption expenditures of SC/STs to that of upper castes on changes in the incidence of crimes against SC/STs. Based on the hierarchical social structure implied by the caste system, the authors posit that an improvement in the economic position of lower castes relative to the upper castes is positively correlated with the incidence of crimes committed by the upper castes against the lower castes. 

While, the authors can not control for this possibility in their regression analysis since the NSS data does not allow us to identify migration, they cite findings from other data sources to investigate this issue. Finally, and more in the nature of a caveat, is the fact that since the analysis is conducted at the level of the district, nothing can be definitively said about the nature of individual motivations that leads to the incidence of such crimes. 

While the papers by Gale et al. (2002) and Mitra and Ray (2013) use incomes and expenditures to measure some form of economic competition, papers from other social sciences measure competition- economic and political- in more general terms. 

Employers use cheaper labour as a way to challenge the more organized, higher paid labour thereby leading to inter-group violence. 

6Starting late 1990s, large-scale datasets such as National Sample Survey and National Family and Health Survey use four social group categories: SC, ST, OBC and ‘Others’. 

For a hate crime, under-reporting is expected for a host of reasons that include intimidation, fear of reprisals and a lack of confidence in the12Data on crimes against SCs/STs, women and children are collected since these groups are considered vulnerable. 

at low levels of income, savings are negligible resulting in a close correspondence between income and consumption expenditure. 

Atrocities against lower castes routinely take the form of rape of women, abuse by police personnel, harassment of lower caste village council heads, illegal land encroachments, forced evictions and so on (Human Rights Watch, 1999). 

The objective of this study is to analyze whether regional variations in the incidence of violence by the upper castes against the lower castes are systematically linked to variations in relative group economic outcomes of lower castes and tribes and upper castes. 

The authors also control for political competition at the state-level by using effective number of parties (Laakso and Taagepara, 1979) that is calculated using data from the state assembly election reports from the Election Commission of India. 

Political reservations at the state and national level legislatures have been a crucial instrument in elevating individuals belonging to SC and ST groups to positions where they exercise influence over policy decisions (Pande, 2003). 

As defined by the Code of Criminal Procedure of India, a ‘cognizable’ offence is one in which the police is empowered to register an FIR, investigate, and arrest an accused without a court-issued warrant. 

This amounts to 22.5 percent of seats in national and state legislatures, village panchayats, institutions of higher education and 22.5 percent of government jobs being reserved for them. 

Research by Lyons (2007) on Chicago neighborhoods and by Green et al. (1998) on New York communities indicates that racially motivated hate crimes are higher in traditionally white neighbourhoods experiencing an influx of minority population. 

The frustration-aggression thesis of Dollard et al. (1939) and Hovland and Sears (1940) suggests that during periods of economic stress, there is an innate tendency to lash out against a vulnerable scapegoat, which is often an out-group that may be linked to the source of the stress. 

The crime data used in this paper are from the annual publication ‘Crime in India’ by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Government of India. 

this effect is driven by changes in the upper castes’ economic well-being rather than changes in the economic position of the lower castes and tribes. 

Bonacich (1972) explains ethnic antagonism by way of “split labour markets” where markets are split along ethnic lines such that there is a large differential between two groups in the price of labour for the same occupation. 

While earlier years reported crimes at the state level, since 2001, data on crimes against SC/ST under various categories have also become available at the district level.