What Do We Know about How Armed Conflict Affects Social Cohesion? A Review of the Empirical Literature

Abstract

How does armed conflict affect the social fabric of societies? This question is central if we want to understand better why some countries experience repeated cycles of violence. In recent years, considerable scientific work has been put into studying the social legacies of armed conflict. This article brings these academic studies together in a novel way, taking a holistic perspective and analyzing each of the three constituent elements of social cohesion—trust, cooperation, and identity—in detail and along both a vertical (state–society relations) and a horizontal (interpersonal and intergroup relations) dimension. Bringing together insights from fifty empirical studies, I call into question the initial optimism expressed by some scholars that conflict increases social cohesion. Only political participation seems to often be positively affected by experiencing conflict. In contrast, social and political trust as well as identification and cooperation across groups declines. However, research in several of these sub-elements of social cohesion is still nascent so that the strengths and shortcomings of the different studies are discussed and future avenues for research are identified.