Crime and Political Participation in Africa: The Role of Insecurity[Agricultural Production Amid Conflict: Separating the Effects of Conflict into Shocks and Uncertainty]

Research finds that personal exposure to violence or crime increases political participation. The effects of fear, however, have not been studied. Since the number of victims is much smaller than those who are afraid of becoming a victim, this suggests an important but unexplored channel from crime to political participation. Moreover, if people who experience violence or crime are also afraid of future exposure, existing estimates conflate the effects of past experience with those of fear of future exposure. We focus on Africa, which has been disproportionately affected by homicides and other forms of serious crimes. We find that fear of crime accounts for 10%–23% of the effect previously attributed to direct exposure. We further find important differences between the effects of fear and victimisation on political attitudes. Whereas victims of crimes have more authoritarian political attitudes, people who are fearful of crime are more supportive of democracy and equality and hold other attitudes that are normally associated with rule of law and democracy. Victimisation is associated with greater focus on in-group (ethnic) identity at the expense of the broader nation.