Flood risk and indicators of social cohesion in the Western Balkans

The study investigates a hypothetical relation between social cohesion and a
major flood event affecting parts of the Western Balkans region. Using state-of-the-art bibliometric techniques, we show the historical evolution of research on social cohesion and disasters, its multi-disciplinary composition resulting in competing definitions of what constitutes social cohesion as well as the relations among the different knowledge domains in the form of network cluster maps. We use the maps as the basis for objectively selecting variables representing social cohesion constituents and relevant control variables. We find that despite the high uncertainties associated with the quantity and quality of the data set, a linear relationship between social cohesion and disaster response does indeed exist as an empirical phenomenon. We discuss implications of the results with regard to a possible trade-off between the individual and collective dimensions of social cohesion and how complementing the model results with a cultural analysis based on grid-group theory could facilitate policies on social cohesion, which are in tune with cultural preferences for systems of governance.