Looking out my back door: The neighborhood context and perceptions of relative deprivation

Students of political violence have often suggested that socioeconomic conditions play a significant role in explaining the individual-level predisposition toward violence. Relative deprivation theories propose that a person's socioeconomic situation is related to political violence, but only if the individual's situation is seen relative to other individuals and groups in society. Unfortunately, most tests of this premise have been inconclusive. To a large extent, the problem centers on the lack of appropriate data; relative deprivation theories posit a relationship between the individual and the context, requiring that we merge individual-level and collective-level data. This study examines individuals' socioeconomic positions within the context of their neighborhoods. Two contextual effects are identified. First, consistent with theories of relative deprivation, support for violence is partly determined by the relationship between individual-level and neighborhood-level economic conditions. For instance, poor persons who reside in relatively well-off neighborhoods are highly supportive of violence. Second, the level of socioeconomic heterogeneity within a neighborhood moderates a person's perceptions of deprivation, and consequently this person's support for political violence. These findings suggest that perceptions of deprivation originate through a complex process centering on socioeconomic information from individuals' social contexts.