Sure, but I would view it as a proxy for a reduction in societal cohesion. Kind of like a cliff function, an example of which is like traffic, as you add more cars to the traffic speeds drop linearly until you reach a threshold and the speeds drops dramatically, a traffic jam.

In the same way if societal cohesion drops, initially it is linear until it reaches a threshold and then the it drops off like a cliff and societal self sustaining emergent behaviour starts to disappear; until chaos and/or revolution. The prime example being rule of law, once laws become unevenly applied and/or subjective then they lose their network effect of sustaining a society. Somewhat like inoculation, a lack of herd immunity allows disease to run rampant.

But that's just my take on it.