Civil war, social capital and resilience in Uganda

Abstract

We show that armed conflict in Uganda affects social capital as measured by trust and associational membership. Relying on three rounds of nationally representative individuallevel data bracketing a large number of violent events, we find that self-reported generalized trust and associational membership decreased during the conflict in districts in which violent events took place. But we also find evidence for a rapid recovery of social capital in the aftermath of violence. Results from a variety of identification strategies, including differencein-difference and instrumental variable estimates, suggests that these relationships are causal.

Social Capital Transformation, Voluntarily Services and Mental Health During Times of Military Conflict in Ukraine

“…The development of stronger bonding ties with those who are supposed to belong to bridging networks is not a new phenomenon among those who have experienced war. In line with our results, other studies also reported that this may happen when existing bonding links disappear or become less significant (like former friends) and when there is a need to substitute them -bridging ties come to help (De Luca & Verpoorten, 2015). In their study from Cyprus, Mehmet and Mehmet (2004) found how within -and between families informal social capital became the main source of survival in times of civil war (Mehmet & Mehmet, 2004).…”

“…Further, a study from Sudan about strengthening bonding ties in a violent community illustrates the importance of social capital formations in times of war (Deng, 2010). The effects of armed conflict on trust were also explored in study from Uganda (De Luca & Verpoorten, 2015). They (ibid) found a rapid recovery of previously decreased trust after the violent conflict.…”

“…Changes in generalized trust due to war and military conflict are also documented elsewhere. For example, the civilian war in Uganda (2000Uganda ( -2012 resulted in a decline in associational membership (which is an important component of social interactions) and led to decrease in generalized trust (De Luca & Verpoorten, 2015). However, it may be a temporary response to a highly critical situation for those who experience (d) military conflict.…”

Stability of experimental and survey measures of risk, time, and social preferences: A review and some new results

“…Findings suggest that conflict may decrease risk aversion (Voors et al, 2012) or increase risk aversion (Callen et al, 2014; Kim and Lee, 2014; Moya, 2011); decrease patience (Voors et al, 2012); lower trust (Cassar et al, 2013; De Luca and Verpoorten, 2015) or have no effect on trust (Grosjean, 2014); increase initial trustworthiness but lower subsequent trustworthiness (Becchetti et al, 2014); increase altruism (Voors et al, 2012) or decrease altruism to out-groups with no effect within group (Silva and Mace, 2014); and increase egalitarianism (Bauer et al, 2014). …”

The Hearts and Minds in Conflict and Peace

“…Cassar, Grosjean, and Whitt (2013), Cuesta and Alda (2012), Luca and Verpoorten (2015), and Rohner, Thoenig, and Zilibotti (2013), yet there is only a handful of studies devoted to the topic of trust in government. These studies found that satisfaction with government services is a strong predictor of trust in government (Askvik, Jamil, and Dhakal, 2011;Hutchison and Johnson, 2011;Sacks and Larizza, 2012;Stoyan et al, 2016), a finding consistent with studies in developed countries.…”