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 viole nce, but only if the individual's situation is seen relative to other individuals and groups in society. Unfortunately, most tests of this p remise 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 w e merge individual-level and collective-level data. This study examine s individuals' socioeconomic positions within the context of their nei ghborhoods. Two contextual effects are identified. First, consistent w ith theories of relative deprivation, support for violence is partly d etermined by the relationship between individual-level and neighborhoo d-level economic conditions. For instance, poor persons who reside in relatively well-off neighborhoods are highly supportive of violence. S econd, 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 centeri ng on socioeconomic information from individuals' social contexts.