New study examines relationship between market integration, reductions in violence

A new study from the University of Georgia sociologists suggests countries with a stronger market orientation may experience lower rates of homicide.

Market orientation and market integration refer to how freely a nation’s economy functions within a framework of legal rights and freedoms such as enforcing contracts, protecting property and ensuring equal opportunity:

Countries that allow buying, selling, working and investing with fewer obstacles and more legal protection were more capable of building peaceful, cooperative communities moving forward.

“If a trader wants to make a living, they must trade with all sorts of people who look or speak differently from them,” said William Pridemore, lead author of the study, Marienthal Professor of Sociology and head of the department of sociology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “The more this happens, the more it can also actually increase social cohesion. The more time you spend around people that are unlike you, you begin to realize that we all have similar wants and needs. It helps to humanize us to each other.”

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“Violence rates tell us something deeply fundamental about a society. They tap into societal, cultural and historical factors. We now know that, together with several other structural and cultural characteristics, market integration varies with violence rates,” Pridemore said. “It’s really important to see this variation from nation to nation and to recognize it has a meaningful, real-world effect.”

The effect was most prominent in countries that were beginning to shift toward freer markets. But it was absent for countries that were above average on market orientation, meaning that once market integration reaches a particular limit it no longer exerts a violence reduction effect.

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