In 1996, the Government of Guatemala and the guerrilla army known as the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), signed the final Peace Accords ending both the United Nations monitored peace process and 36 years of internal conflict. This civil war caused untold internal and external displacement in the region as well as the deaths of over 150,000 people, the majority of whom were from indigenous groups. The legacy of this conflict which includes increasing urban violence, social exclusion, and weak levels of social capital, presents challenges for the country's post-conflict...

'Armed conflict within a state weakens its social fabric and divides the population by undermining interpersonal and communal group trust, destroying the norms and values that underlie cooperation and collective action for the common good, and potentially perverting the mobilization of social relationships away from cooperative development and toward communal strife.' 'Violent Conflict and the Transformation of Social Capital' is an attempt to better understand the interactions between armed conflict and social capital. The World Bank's Post-Conflict Unit (PCU) undertook an investigation of...