The ‘Dark Side’ of Social Capital: A Cross-National Examination of the Relationship Between Social Capital and Violence in Africa

Ludovico Alcorta (), Jeroen Smits, Haley J. Swedlund and Eelke Jong
Additional contact information
Ludovico Alcorta: Radboud University
Jeroen Smits: Radboud University
Haley J. Swedlund: Radboud University
Eelke Jong: Radboud University

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2020, vol. 149, issue 2, No 4, 445-465

Abstract: Abstract Research and policy circles often emphasize the importance of social capital in achieving social transformation and economic development. There is also, however, potentially a ‘dark side’ to social capital. This study investigates the relationship between two different types of social capital—structural and cognitive—using two different measures of political violence: self-reported support for political violence and self-reported participation in political violence. We theorized that cognitive social capital will facilitate social cohesion within a community, enabling particularized trust between neighbours and a shared identity. On the other hand, structural social capital, or associational membership, potentially facilitates the diffusion of grievances and facilitates collective mobilization. Accordingly, we predict that higher levels of structural social capital will be associated with support for and participation in political violence, whilst higher levels of cognitive social capital will be associated with less support for and participation in political violence. We then test these predictions using Afrobarometer data on 40,455 individuals living in 27 African countries. Multivariate regression analysis confirms that indicators of structural and cognitive social capital have contrasting relationships with support for and participation in political violence. While particularized trust and national identity are negatively associated with political violence, religious and community associational membership are positively associated with political violence. In addition, we find that strength of attachment to a social identity, regardless of whether to an ethnic or national identity, is an important indicator of political violence.

Keywords: Social capital; Political violence; Identity; Trust; Associational membership; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-019-02264-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:149:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-019-02264-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-019-02264-z

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().