Citation

Albrecht F. Disasters 2018; 42(2): 336-360.

Affiliation

Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, Uppsala University, and Researcher, Centre for Natural Disaster Science, Sweden.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/disa.12246

PMID

28857267

Abstract

This study investigates if and to what extent natural disasters affect social capital. Twelve different events in Europe are examined in a quantitative analysis, using data derived from the European Social Survey and the EM-DAT International Disaster Database. The study uses social trust as an indicator of social capital and offers evidence that a change in social trust is a possible occurrence during or after a disaster, but that it is not an inevitable consequence of it. The results reveal that social trust decreases after a disaster with a death toll of at least nine. Changes in social capital, therefore, are found to be more probable as the severity of the event increases. National, rather than regional, disasters lead more frequently to significant shifts in social trust. This evaluation of 12 separate cases pinpoints several disasters that have had an effect on social trust, but it does not identify any general patterns, underlining the significance of contextual dependency.

© 2017 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2017.

Language: en

Keywords

social capital; social trust; sociology of disasters