How Wartime Violence Affects Social Cohesion: The Spatial–Temporal Gravity Model

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–temporal gravity model, where spatially and temporally proximate events have the highest impact on this divergence at the village level.

Acknowledgements

Christoph Zürcher acknowledges funding from the Deutsche Forschungsmemeinschaft. We thank Jason Lyall for sharing data with us, and Vincenzo Bove and David Carter for comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

 1. See Stathis Kalyvas, ‘Promises and Pitfalls of an Emerging Research Program: The Microdynamics of Civil War’, in Stathis N. Kalyvas, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud (eds) Order, Conflict, and Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2008) pp.1–14; Jeremy M. Weinstein, ‘Resources and the Information Problem in Rebel Recruitment’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 49/4 (2005) pp.598–624; Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007); Klaus Schlichte, In the Shadow of Violence: The Politics of Armed Groups (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag 2009); Macartan Humphreys and Jeremy M. Weinstein, ‘Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War’, American Political Science Review 100/3 (2006) pp.429–447.

 2. Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006).

 3. Eli Berman, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Joseph H. Felter, ‘Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq’, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 14606 (Cambridge, MA 2009) < http://www.nber.org/papers/w14606.pdf?new_window = 1>, accessed 26 Dec. 2012.

 4. Jason Lyall, ‘Are Co-Ethnics More Effective Counter-Insurgents? Evidence from the Second Chechen War’, American Political Science Review 104/1 (2010) pp.1–20.

 5. Yuri M. Zhukov, ‘Roads and the Diffusion of Insurgent Violence: The Logistics of Conflict in Russia's North Caucasus’, Political Geography 31/3 (2012) pp.144–156.

 6. Alan Kay, ‘Social Capital, the Social Economy and Community Development’, Community Development Journal 41/2 (2005) pp.160–173; Paul Wassenich and Katherine Whiteside, ‘CDD Impact Assessments Study: Optimizing Evaluation Design Under Constraints’, in T. W. Bank (ed.) Social Development Papers: Community Driven Development 51 (2004) < http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTRANETSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/2145781111660828964/20486408/CDD+Impact+Assessments.pdf>, accessed 26 Dec. 2012.

 7. Jack Goldstone, ‘Pathways to State Failure’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 25 (2008) pp.285–296.

 8. Katja Mielke and Conrad Schetter, ‘Where is the Village? Local Perceptions and Development Approaches in Kunduz Province’, Asien 104 (2007) pp.71-87.

 9. Christoph Zürcher, The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict and Nationhood in the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press 2007).

10. Jonathan Wheatley and Christoph Zürcher, ‘On the Origin and Consolidation of Hybrid Regimes: The State of Democracy in the Caucasus’, Taiwan Journal of Democracy 4/1 (2008) pp.1–31.

11. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War’, American Political Science Review 97/1 (2003) pp.75–90.

12. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56/4 (2004) pp.563–595.

13. Kathleen Cunningham and Nils B. Weidmann, ‘Shared Space: Ethnic Groups, State Accommodation and Localized Conflict’, International Studies Quarterly 54/4 (2010) pp.1035–1054.

14. Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher, ‘Statebuilding, Conflict and Narcotics in Afghanistan: The View from Below’, International Peacekeeping 14/1 (2007) pp. 62–74.

15. Jan Rasmus Böhnke, Jan Koehler, and Christoph Zürcher, ‘Assessing the Impact of Development Cooperation in North East Afghanistan 2005–2009: Final Report’, German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Division Evaluation Reports 049 (2010) < http://www.bmz.de/en/zentrales_downloadarchiv/erfolg/BMZ_WP_Methodenbericht_AFG.pdf>, accessed 26 Dec. 2012).

16. Georg Simmel, Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations, (Glencoe, IL: Free Press. 1955); Raymond W. Mack and Richard C. Snyder, ‘The Analysis of Social Conflict–Toward an Overview and Synthesis’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 1/2 (1957) pp.212–248; Kenneth E. Boulding, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (New York: Harper and Row 1962); For an overview, see Arthur A. Stein, ‘Conflict and Cohesion: A Review of the Literature’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 20/1 (1976) pp.143–172.

17. For example, see David Sobek, ‘Rallying Around the Podesta: Testing Diversionary Theory across Time’, Journal of Peace Research 44/1 (2007) pp.29–45.

18. Luka Biong Deng, ‘Social Capital and Civil War: The Dinka Communities in Sudan's Civil War’, African Affairs 109/435 (2010) pp.231–250.

19. Kalyvas (note 2).

20. For example, see Bibb Latané, ‘The Psychology of Social Impact’, American Psychologist 36 (1981) pp. 343–365.

21. Waldo R. Tobler, ‘A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region’, Economic Geography 46 (1970) p.236.

22. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (Yale: Yale University Press 2002).

23. ISAF casualties numbers are taken from < http://icasualties.org/>, while numbers of civilian deaths were compiled by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), subsequently quoted in the Guardian, and are available at < http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-statistics#data> (both websites were accessed on 26 Dec. 2012).

24. The surveys were implemented by an Afghan research organization (Coordination of Afghan Relief, COAR). The German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development provided logistical support. Jan Koehler (FU Berlin) oversaw the implementation of the survey in the field. The survey is part of larger research project at the Free University Berlin (SFB 700, C1 and C9) and is funded in part by the German Research Foundation. For a full account of the methodology, see Böhnke, Koehler and Zürcher (note 15).

25. While we sampled the same villages across both waves, we randomly sampled the households within those villages in both survey waves. We made this decision in the early stages of our research for two reasons. First, Afghanistan is a highly volatile country, and we were concerned with the possibility of high attrition rates. Second, we were concerned with the safety of our respondents. It can be risky to be seen to interact regularly with Western organizations.

26. Our data-set is a declassified version of what was later released by the WikiLeaks portal as Afghanistan War Diary. We are grateful to Jason Lyall for making these data available to us.

27. Alberto Alesina, Arnaud Devleeschauwer, William Easterly, Sergio Kurlat and Romain Wacziarg, ‘Fractionalization’, Journal of Economic Growth 8 (2003) pp.155–194.

28. Deng (note 18).

29. Clionadh Raleigh, Andrew Linke, Håvard Hegre, and Joakim Karlsen, ‘Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset’, Journal of Peace Research 47/5 (2010) pp.651–660; Cullen S. Hendrix, Idean Salehyan, Christina Case, Christopher Linebarger, Emily Stull, and Jennifer Williams, ‘The Social Conflict in Africa Database: New Data and Applications’, Unpublished working paper (Denton TX 2010).

30. Halvard Buhaug and Jan Ketil Rød, ‘Local Determinants of African Civil Wars, 1970–2001’, Political Geography 25/3 (2006) pp.315–335; Clionadh Raleigh and Håvard Hegre, ‘Population Size, Concentration and Civil War: A Geographically Disaggregated Analysis’, Political Geography 28/4 (2009) pp.224–238.