Social capital can increase violence rather than always reducing it

Evidence

Ludovico Alcorta, Jeroen Smits, Haley J. Swedlund, and Eelke de Jong, “The ‘Dark Side’ of Social Capital: A Cross-National Examination of the Relationship between Social Capital and Violence in Africa,” Social Indicators Research 149, no. 2 (2020): 445–65. — Lea Echelmeyer, Anne-Marie Slotboom, and Frank Weerman, The Putative Effect of Identity on…, 266

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: density of binding social ties is usually framed as protective against extremism, yet cross-national evidence finds it can fuel violence — a clean counterintuitive hook for an essay on the dark side of cohesion.