CLEAN SEMINAR - Francesco Capozza (WZB)

The next CLEAN seminar will take place on May 22nd 2025 from 4-5PM CET in Alesina Seminar room 5.e4.sr04 Floor 5, Via Röntgen 1.

Francesco Capozza (WZB) will be presenting his paper “Law & Order and Social Capital” joint with Matteo Giugovaz (UPF) and Giuseppe Musillo (Tilburg). 

Abstract 

State repression has been surging in the western world in the last years, with wide effects on communities and the economy. In this paper, we examine the impact of violent state repression on social capital and political participation in a mature democracy. To address this question, we focus on the events surrounding the 2001 G8 summit in Genova, Italy, when approximately 200,000 people joined an authorized protest against the meeting. During the event, police violently cracked down on the protests, resulting in one protester's death, hundreds of injuries, and acts of torture. We exploit variation in exposure to police brutality by leveraging the geographical distribution of associations adhering, which served as the primary channel for protest participation, to assess the effects of the repression on social capital. Our results show that proximity to GSF associations significantly reduced voter turnout in subsequent national elections and reduced trust in institutions. We interpret this effect as a decrease in civic engagement due to exposure to state repression, potentially driven by reduced trust in political institutions and law enforcement.

You may follow the event online via Zoom Meetings at the following link: https://unibocconi-it.zoom.us/j/95156174209?pwd=wXEpcuO3NvMY4wKbMZJxdbd4MXbThO.1 - Meeting ID: 951 5617 4209 - Passcode: 380323