The Geography of Lethal Violence Escalation: Cross-National Differences in Recorded Homicide and Serious Assault across Structural Contexts
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Why do countries with recorded serious interpersonal violence display markedly different shares of lethal outcomes? This study introduces the Lethal Escalation Index (LEI), calculated as intentional homicide divided by the sum of intentional homicide and police-recorded serious assault. LEI is an ecological measure of the lethal composition of recorded violence, not the probability that an individual assault becomes homicide. UNODC counts for 2016-2018 were linked to civilian firearm estimates, alcohol consumption, current health expenditure per capita, and government effectiveness. The complete-case sample comprises 88 countries. Fractional logistic regression with heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors assesses the associations, supplemented by temporal-coverage sensitivity tests. Recorded LEI ranges from 0.19% to 86.44%, with a median of 9.27%. Government effectiveness is associated with a substantially lower lethal share in the fully adjusted model; firearm prevalence, alcohol volume, and health expenditure are not independently distinguishable from zero. Health expenditure is negative before government effectiveness enters, but their strong correlation prevents clean separation. The findings support treating homicide as an outcome of lethalization while demonstrating that administrative visibility remains inseparable from cross-national comparisons of serious violence.
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