Social Capital and Conflict

Conflict is either caused by, or brings about, drastic changes in the underlying social relationships between members of a community involved in the conflict. The conflict literature has taken note, and a growing number of studies attempt to determine the relationship between conflict and social capital. Unfortunately, there are many problems that have plagued the social capital literature, and conflict studies have failed to address these. This paper aims to provide a critical analysis of the literature on conflict and social capital, discuss the problems that can arise when studying social capital, how the conflict literature might address this, and highlight the gaps in the conflict and social capital literature.