How Wartime Violence Affects Social Cohesion: The Spatial–Temporal Gravity Model
Civil Wars 15(1): 1–18.
Local communities such as villages are commonly assumed to be vital partners in counterinsurgency and post‐conflict reconstruction. However, the success of all policies based on this assumption depends on the level of social cohesion at the community level: communities with internal cleavages and fissures will be less effective in making external efforts a success. In this article, we study how exposure to violence during civil war affects the internal cohesion of a community. On the one hand, we could assume that exposure to a common threat strengthens social ties. On the other hand, shifting power structures in conflict regions could introduce new loyalties and cleavages at the village level, thus eroding a community’s social glue. We use data from a survey conducted in northern Afghanistan and combine it with the data on violent events from military records. Our results provide evidence for the second mechanism: exposure to violence causes villagers to diverge in their support for conflicting parties. We estimate a spatialgravity model, where spatially and temporally proximate events have the highest impact on this divergence at the village level.
DOI:
10.1080/13698249.2013.781299Weidmann, Nils B., and Christoph Zürcher. 2013. “How Wartime Violence Affects Social Cohesion: The Spatial–Temporal Gravity Model.” Civil Wars 15(1): 1–18.
@article{weidmann2013wartime,
Author = {Weidmann, Nils B. and Z{\"u}rcher, Christoph},
Journal = {Civil Wars},
Number = {1},
Pages = {1--18},
Publisher = {Taylor \& Francis},
Title = {How Wartime Violence Affects Social Cohesion: The Spatial--Temporal Gravity Model},
Volume = {15},
Year = {2013},
abstract = {Local communities such as villages are commonly assumed to be vital partners in counterinsurgency and post-conflict reconstruction. However, the success of all policies based on this assumption depends on the level of social cohesion at the community level: communities with internal cleavages and fissures will be less effective in making external efforts a success. In this article, we study how exposure to violence during civil war affects the internal cohesion of a community. On the one hand, we could assume that exposure to a common threat strengthens social ties. On the other hand, shifting power structures in conflict regions could introduce new loyalties and cleavages at the village level, thus eroding a community's social glue. We use data from a survey conducted in northern Afghanistan and combine it with the data on violent events from military records. Our results provide evidence for the second mechanism: exposure to violence causes villagers to diverge in their support for conflicting parties. We estimate a spatial\textendashtemporal gravity model, where spatially and temporally proximate events have the highest impact on this divergence at the village level.
},
doi = {10.1080/13698249.2013.781299},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2013.781299}
}