The effect of social capital on disaster conflicts in local communities: Focusing on disaster victims

doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102445

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

Volume 63, September 2021, 102445

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102445 Get rights and content

Abstract

People constantly experience large and small disasters in their lives. These disasters often destroy the community spirit and identity and cause “disaster conflict.” This study attempts to derive policy and practical implications for ways to minimize disaster conflict by analyzing the impact of social capital on conflicts experienced by residents after disasters. As a result of the analysis, a significant influence of social capital on minimizing disaster conflict experience could be identified. In particular, the types of social capital at play were different. In the case of a large-scale disaster, the “network” had a significant impact on reducing the experience of disaster conflict, whereas, in the case of a small-scale disaster, “trust” in neighbors and communities had a significant impact on reducing the experience of disaster conflict. Based on these results, it was confirmed once again that it is very important not only to establish physical and human infrastructure and systems, but also to establish social capital within the community for disaster management.

Introduction

Unexpected shock from disasters often cause conflicts within established communities. Moreover, disruption caused by disasters further intensifies existing social conflicts [1]. Communities experience conflict and division from issues such as identifying responsibility, taking action, and conflicting interests between individuals and the community when experiencing disaster management. This phenomenon is known as “disaster conflict.” Previous studies mention that disaster conflict is caused by differences in interpretation of data, inappropriate communication, inequality in authority, and conflict in value, which arise from disaster situations or conflicts among stakeholders in overcoming them [1,2].

Disaster conflicts quickly destroy the community spirit and identity. Communication and agreements between residents in the process of recovering from the disaster become obstacles that delay the recovery and restoration of the community and have large social costs. In fact, Korea has also experienced serious conflicts and huge social expenditures due to disasters such as the Sewol Ferry disaster, the MERS outbreak, and the Jecheon fire incident [3,4].¹

Many researchers have focused on the conflicts that residents face after a disaster and consider ways to prevent and reduce conflicts caused by disasters [5,6]. This study noted the role of social capital. Social capital is known to have a significant impact on reducing social conflict and strengthening sense of community in general [7,8]. Depending on social capital in the form of network, trust, and reciprocity of the community, there may be differences in the incidence and condition of disaster conflicts Thus, organizations with higher social capital were more likely to relieve conflicts through suppressing selfish actions among its members. However, there is not enough empirical study on the correlation of the two factors. In addition, there is a significant lack in attempts at discriminative verification in studying the relationship between social capital and disaster conflicts depending on the scale of the disaster experienced by the residents.

As a result, this study aims to analyze the relationship between the conflict experienced by residents after a disaster and social conflict. Specifically, this study analyzes the influence relationship between the community's social capital (trust, network, reciprocity) and the disaster conflict experienced by residents after the disaster. The discriminative relationship between social capital and disaster, depending on its scale, is verified to complement existing studies. Through such research, the relationship between social capital and the disaster conflict faced by residents after a disaster is empirically verified. In addition, the study provides grounds for developing and managing social capital as well as the basis for creating different policies that aim to minimize the occurrence of disaster conflicts based on the scale of disaster experienced by the residents.

Section snippets

Disaster conflict: focusing on the conflicts experienced by residents

Disasters are defined as sudden traumatic events that occur due to natural, technological, or human causes [9]. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency [10] defines it as an occurrence of a natural catastrophe, technological accident, or human caused event that has resulted in severe property damage, deaths, and/or multiple injuries. As used in this Guide, a “large-scale disaster” is one that exceeds the response capability of the local jurisdiction and requires State, and potentially

Analytical methods and data collection

In this study, the analysis consists of two stages. The first analysis is initially performed through a descriptive statistical analysis of the demographic factors of the survey respondents. Next, the technical statistical analysis is conducted on the independent, dependent, and control variables.

A logistic regression analysis was utilized for the second stage, which is an analysis of binomial dependent variables. If a dependent variable is binomial and has a nonlinear shape, it is in line with

Demographic characteristics of survey respondents and descriptive analysis

This study analyzes 2266 victims in South Korea who experienced disasters from 2016 to 2019. The values of the demographic factors in the analyzed data of this study are shown in Table 3.

The descriptive analysis of the variables is shown in Table 4. First, among social capital as an independent variable, trust was 3.1882, network was 3.1966, and reciprocity was 3.2211. The analysis indicated that the overall social capital of the respondents was more than three points. Second, among the factors

Conclusion

Social capital is considered an important contextual factor to help reduce and overcome various conflicts in the community [8,[40], [41], [42]]. In particular, the frequency and scale of disasters experienced by victims in modern society is increasing. As a result, post-disaster conflicts are also increasing, delaying recovery and causing excessive social costs. Therefore, this study analyzed the relationship between conflicts experienced by disaster victims and social capital, focusing on

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding

This study was supported by 2021 Academic Research Support Program in Gangneung-Wonju National University.

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