Routine violence in the Island of Java, Indonesia: neo-Malthusian and social justice perspectives

Type Working Paper
Title Routine violence in the Island of Java, Indonesia: neo-Malthusian and social justice perspectives
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2010
URL https://crawford.anu.edu.au/acde/ip/pdf/lpem/2011/Zulfan_2011.pdf
Abstract
This chapter examines the role of population pressure and inequality, and their possible joint effects on routine violence across districts in Java. It looks at violence from the perspectives of neo-Malthusian and social justice. These issues are highly relevant for Java. Inhabited by 128 million people, it is the most populous island on earth and the most densely populated island in Indonesia, making it classically Malthusian. Furthermore, the effects of global climate change (e.g. rising sea level) and environmental degradations are likely to deepen the Malthusian scenario for Java. We employ count data panel data regression technique of 98 districts in Java covering the period 1994-2003. Using population density as the indicator of population pressure, we find empirical evidence of the neo-Malthusian conflict scenario. However, the support is only available for population density indicator. The effect is worse if higher population density coincide with higher population growth. Although the role of vertical inequality in conflict has been largely discounted in empirical cross-country studies, we find empirical support for a violence inducing effect of vertical inequality. This finding is based on the apparent existence of an inverted-U relationship between inequality and income as hypothesized by Kuznets. Our finding on the inequality effect helps in explaining the inverted-U-relationship between income and violence found elsewhere. The effect of income on violence is channelled through inequality. Inequality induced grievances would be more intense and spread quicker in more densely populated localities, pointing to an unsafe mixture of vertical inequality and population pressure.

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