What is a community, together with what forces be to either save the strands of community or to erode those strands? To start, a commun...
What is a community, together with what forces be to either save the strands of community or to erode those strands?
To start, a community is a population inside a defined geographical space. It is a grouping of people who cause got their ain interests, identities, together with affinities. It is a grouping of people who act inwards a diversity of ways — work, garden, vote inwards elections, lift children, bring together protestation movements, back upwardly the government, pocket cars, together with attend populace events. It is a grouping of people who are located inside a infinite of social relationships — a laid upwardly of social network graphs detailing their relations to family, friends, co-workers, swain worshippers, swain members of sports teams together with civic associations. It is a grouping of people who cause got strong ties together with weak ties to a attain of other people together with organizations. And it is a grouping of individuals who cause got ideas well-nigh how social club should work, what is fair, who benefits from electrical current social together with political arrangements.
What makes a collection of people into a community rather than a jumble of unrelated individuals? There needs to hold upwardly something inwards common, something that ties individuals together together with hence they are to around bird willing to human activity inwards consideration of others inwards the group—a laid upwardly of values, a laid upwardly of shared purposes, a laid upwardly of shared commitments to rules together with laws of activity inwards society. H5N1 strong community demonstrates a high bird of mutual abide by for these values, rules, together with laws. H5N1 weak community is the social club that Hobbes feared—an agglomeration of self-interested actors competing for powerfulness together with wealth, inwards which life is nasty, brutish, together with short.
We mightiness specify that sometimes a population embodies a plurality of sub-communities, each of which has a laid upwardly of shared values together with purposes—the Catholics together with the Protestants, the Hindus together with the Muslims, the bourgeois together with the proles. Sub-groups may cause got real dissimilar cultural together with religious beliefs, together with they may also cause got real dissimilar positions inwards the social-property scheme together with the political system. These sub-groups may cause got strong links amid themselves but alone weak links alongside individuals inwards the other sub-group. They may cause got strong adherence to a laid upwardly of values together with norms shared yesteryear their grouping but non across groups, together with their norms may specify dissimilar demeanour towards in-group together with out-group individuals.
Crucially, a population alongside nested sub-communities may also possess an overarching unifying identity. That is, a mixed social club may comprise sub-groups that cause got their ain norms together with affinities, but that also part higher-level norms together with commitments alongside other sub-groups. "We X’s alive our lives differently from those Y’s; but nosotros all convey the legitimacy of police line together with the liberty of worship." Those higher-level commitments mightiness include items along these lines:
- recognition of the legitimacy of government
- commitment to the dominion of law
- commitment to rights of association, speech, religion, movement
- commitment to the equal rights together with worth of all members of the community
- a compassionate regard for the lives together with flourishing of members of other communities
But all likewise oftentimes this ideal of a tolerant together with stable community embracing multiple racial together with ethnic groups is broken on the rocks of inter-group mistrust together with violence. Groups polarize, individuals inwards i grouping prepare mistrust or animosity against members of other groups, isolated instances of disrespect or violence escalate into conflict or pogroms. The civility that existed inwards i menses breaks downwardly into hostility together with violence inwards around other period.
It is of import to empathize the social mechanisms together with strategies that be inwards this arena inwards both directions: the strategies that be for promoting mutual agreement together with peaceful cooperation, together with the mechanisms that be that cause got the potential for undermining peaceful relations amid groups inwards a population.
There are a seat out of familiar strategies together with mechanisms that run inwards back upwardly of civility inside a multi-ethnic or multi-religious community: organizations devoted to promoting inter-group understanding, institutions that encourage the formation of ties across grouping lines (like universities), leaders who promote the values of civility together with mutual respect, effective police line enforcement that speedily addresses vehement actions yesteryear individuals inwards i grouping against those of another. The ways that these strategies run are also fairly plain. Equitable police line enforcement enhances confidence that everyone volition hold upwardly treated fairly, no thing what grouping they seat with. Good leadership is exerted to brand salient the unifying collective commitments that extend across all groups, together with these commitments move motivationally effective. Cross-group organizations create novel ties amid individuals from dissimilar groups which gives them resilience inwards resisting the impulse of hostility when conflicts arise.
What are around of the mechanisms that come upwardly into play inwards multi-group populations that Pb to instability together with conflict? Here are around mutual factors that Pb to the breakdown of community: mistrust, failures of assurance, political entrepreneurship, media incitement, rumor, together with conflicts of involvement over holding together with political arrangements. Some groups together with leaders cause got a political involvement inwards elevating tensions betwixt groups. Rumors of bad actions yesteryear members of the other grouping lessen the resolve of grouping members to keep their opinion of solidarity. (Atul Kohli considers around of these mechanisms inwards Republic of Republic of India inwards Democracy together with Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability.)
It seems apparent that the mechanisms together with impulses towards fission are perennial together with demand to hold upwardly contained if a multi-ethnic or multi-religious community is to hold upwardly sustained over time. Work yesteryear scholars similar Donald Horowitz (Ethnic Groups inwards Conflict) together with Ashu Varshney (Ethnic Conflict together with Civic Life: Hindus together with Muslims inwards India) illustrate the historical processes through which mixed communities cause got broken downwardly into ethnic violence. It would hold upwardly real interesting to essay to utilization agent-based modeling to model the workings of pro- together with anti-solidarity mechanisms inwards a mixed population, along the lines of a populace wellness simulation of disease, to evaluate the weather condition that favor or disfavor the survival of community inwards a population incorporating a seat out of groups.
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