Causal Modeling of Violence in the Metropolitan Area of Guayaquil: Neutrosophic Evidence and Analysis of Necessary Conditions

Urban violence in the Metropolitan Area of Guayaquil poses persistent challenges for social well-being and governance. This study integrates three sources of evidence to clarify which factors are necessary and what minimum levels enable high levels of violence. First, we apply stance detection with a neutrosophic representation to construct a literature-based prior (T, I, F). We then assess necessary conditions using fsQCA (fuzzy-set inclusion 𝑌⊆𝑋, consistency threshold ≥ 0.90) and estimate thresholds (bottlenecks) with NCA (CE-FDH, CR-FDH, permutation tests). A single fuzzy matrix is used across methods to ensure coherence. Drawing on a survey of 179 youth in Guayaquil, we analyze structural factors (unemployment, poverty, income inequality), institutional factors (corruption, deficient legal system, insufficient police, ineffective policies), and community factors (gangs, public spaces); the outcome is Frequent Violence. Results show tri-method convergence: an institutional core emerges as a general necessary condition; income inequality and unemployment operate as bottlenecks for high violence; and gangsfunction as a proximal lever. The neutrosophic approach integrates support, indeterminacy, and rejection from the literature with local data, providing an explanatory and actionablebasis to prioritize institutional reforms, manage structural thresholds, and deploy community interventions in Guayaquil