HomeLibraryPublication

Civil war and the formation of social trust in Kosovo: Posttraumatic growth or war-related distress?

Sara Kijewski / Markus Freitag (2018)

Key facts

Journal/Publisher
Journal of Conflict Resolution
Type of publication
Journal article
Elements of social cohesion
Trust
Geographical focus
Serbia
Main thematic areas
Conflict & peacebuilding

Summary

While a new, growing subset of the literature argues that armed conflict does not necessarily erode social cohesion in the postwar era, we challenge this perspective and examine how civil war experiences shape social trust in Kosovo after the war from 1998 to 1999. Based on a nationwide survey conducted in 2010 and the disaggregated conflict event data set of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, we simultaneously analyze the impact of individual war-related experiences and exposure to war in the community through hierarchical analyses of twenty-six municipalities. Our findings confirm that civil war is negatively related to social trust. This effect proves to be more conclusive for individual war experiences than for contextual war exposure. Arguably, the occurrence of instances of violence with lasting psychological as well as social structural consequences provides people with clear evidence of the untrustworthiness, uncooperativeness, and hostility of others, diminishing social trust in the aftermath of war.

Cover-page_2018_Sara Kijewski / Markus Freitag

Explore the hub further

graph_concept_Social Cohesion Index
Concept

Social Cohesion Index

graph_data_SCORE Ukraine & SCORE Eastern Ukraine
Data

SCORE Ukraine & SCORE Eastern Ukraine

graph_publication_Strengthening Social Cohesion in Conflict-Affected Societies: Potential, Patterns and Pitfalls
Library

Strengthening Social Cohesion in Conflict-Affected Societies: Potential, Patterns and Pitfalls

Youth Promotion for Social Cohesion
Project

Youth Promotion for Social Cohesion