social capital: summing up the debate on a conceptual tool of comparative politics and public policy

Social Capital

Summing up the Debate on a Conceptual Tool of ComparativePolitics and Public Policy

Christos J Paraskevopoulos

Social capital defined as a combination of generalized trust and access to social networkshas become a key concept in the social sciences in recent decades because it correlates withnormatively desirable qualitative features of liberal democracy such as functioning demo-cratic institutions increased levels of civicness and citizensrsquo participation in social andorpublic life and most importantly with increased levels of performance in several publicpolicy areas such as education health development and public policy at large The rele-vance of social capital to good governance and almost all areas of public policy draws on itscapacity for resolving dilemmas of collective action such as the provision of variouspublic goods and avoiding a situation Bo Rothstein describes as ldquosocial traprdquo1 There isstrong evidence that social capital contributes not only to public policy achievementsbut to improving the performance of democratic institutions and democracy at large

The already huge and expanding literature and research on social capital over the lastfifteen years has been dominated by a fundamental and crucial theoretical dichotomy Onthe one hand the culturalhistorical approach views social capital as an independent variableembedded in and generated by culturally and historically determined networks of civic en-gagement (that is associations civil society organizations) that affect public policy outcomesOn the other hand the institutionalist approach conceptualizes social capital as an interveningvariable crucially influenced by formal institutional structures of the polity such as the wel-fare state in conjunction with other variables such as equality and homogeneity and affect-ing in turn the quality of governance and public policy outcomes at large The formerapproach is characterized by the logic of path dependence and therefore attributes much ofthe origins of social capital to history Conversely the latter approach takes into account therole of important humanly constructed devices such as institutions and equality This articleconsiders this theoretical dichotomy as well as the determinant and outcome variables ofsocial capital through a review and assessment of recent scholarly contributions to the debate

Social Capital Conceptualization and Measurement

Generalized Trust and Networks of Civic Engagement Social capital has emergedon the political science (comparative politics public policy) agenda as a crucial conceptual

475

tool that by facilitating ldquocertain actions of actors within the structurerdquo2 leads to the cross-ing of the old schism between structure agency and culture Although James Colemanrsquosdefinition of social capital as ldquoa set of inherent social-structural resources in the socialorganization that constitute capital assets for the individualrdquo implies that it refers to indi-vidual actors3 social capital is crucial for facilitating collective action among corporateactors as well ldquobecause purposive organizations can be actors just as persons can rela-tions among corporate actors can constitute social capital for them as wellrdquo4 Thus socialcapital is not of any individual or group Rather it is a relational concept that refers ldquotofeatures of social organization such as trust norms and networks [of civic engagement]that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action5 Thereforevoluntary cooperation is easier in communities that have inherited a substantial stock ofsocial capital6 Those societies do not view the pursuit of collective goods as contradictingor conflicting with the pursuit of maximizing individual or group wealth Coleman hasdefined social capital as follows

ldquoSocial capital is defined by its function It is not a single entity but a variety of entitieswith two elements in common they all consist of some aspect of social structures andthey facilitate certain actions of actors-whether persons or corporate actors-within thestructure Like other forms of capital social capital is productive making possible theachievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be possible For example agroup whose members manifest trustworthiness and place trust in one another will beable to accomplish much more than a comparable group lacking that trustworthinessand trusthellip Like physical capital and human capital social capital is not completelyfungible but may be specific to certain activitieshellipUnlike other forms of capital socialcapital inheres in the structure of relations between actors and among actors It is notlodged either in the actors themselves or in physical implements of productionrdquo7

Fundamentally social capital constitutes another form of capital along with physi-cal and human capital Yet social capital has the characteristics of a public good whereasconventional capital is considered to be a private good In this respect like all publicgoods it tends to be undervalued and undersupplied by private agents which means thatsocial capital more than other forms of capital needs to be nurtured supported andenhanced in order not to be depleted Thus social capital may often be produced as aby-product of other social activities8

Trust constitutes the most important component of social capital It is linked to thevolatility and hence uncertainty of modern economic and institutional settings and isthe crucial conceptual mechanism to resolve this uncertainty by shaping the relationsbetween partners and facilitating collective action ldquoTrust the mutual confidence thatno party to an exchange will exploit the othersrsquo vulnerability is today widely regardedas a precondition for competitive successrdquo9 However given that modern economiesand societies require the diffused form of trust how does personal trust becomes socialtrust This crucial issue within social capital theory is closely linked to the intercon-nectedness between trust and networks of civic engagement Indeed according to RobertPutnam social (generalized) trust in modern complex settings can arise from two relatedforms of social capital norms of reciprocity and solidarity on the one end and networks

Comparative Politics July 2010

476

of civic engagement on the other10 Such norms transfer the right to control an actionfrom an actor to others because that action has externalities that is consequences(positive or negative) for others Social norms arise when ldquoan action has similar ex-ternalities for a set of othershellipand no single actor can profitably engage in an exchangeto gain rights of controlrdquo11

The most important norm is reciprocity12 which is of two sortsmdashbalanced and gen-eralized13 Balanced reciprocity refers to a simultaneous exchange of equivalent valueswhile generalized reciprocity is based on a continuing relationship of exchange whichinvolves mutual expectations that a benefit granted now should be repaid in the futureldquoIf A does something for B and trusts B to reciprocate in the future this establishes anexpectation in A and an obligation on the part of B which can be conceived of as acredit slip held by A for performance by Brdquo14 The norm of generalized reciprocity isconsidered a highly productive component of social capital Communities embracingthis norm can more efficiently restrain opportunism minimize the inward orientationof groups and resolve problems of collective action by reconciling solidarity andself-interest Generalized reciprocity is associated with dense networks of social ex-change through which the core relationships between reciprocity reputation and trustare developed in a mutually reinforcing way15 Thus norms and hence social capital aresustained by socialization and sanctions

As with other concepts in social science there are two theoretical approaches toand conceptualizations of trust identified in the literaturemdasha rational choice and anorm-driven approach In the terminology of new institutionalism the rational choiceconceptualization of trust is based on the logic of consequentiality while the norm-driven approach sees trust as embedded in the logic of appropriateness16 While therational choice approach refers to trust in people one knows or has information aboutthe norm-driven one refers to the moralistic notion of trust in strangers In a similar veinEric Uslaner has distinguished between particularized trust and generalizedsocial ormoral trust Particularized trust refers to a strategic trust among in-group membersand is mostly identified with outlaw and hate groups believing in conspiracies andhaving a negative view about the future and their influence on their own lives It isassociated with ldquobondingrdquo social capital (discussed below) Social or moral trust onthe other hand is identified as a moral norm linked to optimism about the future andldquobased upon a fundamental ethical assumption that other people share your fundamentalvaluesrdquo17 It is associated with the ldquobridgingrdquo type of social capital (discussed below)

One of the well-developed rational conceptions of trust is Russell Hardinrsquos notionof ldquoencapsulated trustrdquo18 Hardinrsquos approach is based on the assumption that there is nosuch a thing as generalized trust only interpersonal trust In that respect what reallymatters is not trust itself but rather trustworthiness embedded in the encapsulated in-terests in onersquos incentive structure that make her or him behave in a trustworthy wayIn other words the concept of trust as encapsulated interest implies a three-part rela-tionship in which A trusts B with respect to x Indeed this notion of trust is similarto Margaret Levi and Laura Stokerrsquos definition according to which trust is viewed asa function of anotherrsquos incentive to further our interests and of onersquos ability to do so19


477

In a similar vein Jan Delhey and Kenneth Newtonrsquos conceptualization of general-ized social trust as ldquothe belief that others will not deliberately or knowingly do us harmif they can avoid it and will look after our interests if this is possiblerdquo also belongsto the rational choice school given its conditional character though it simultaneouslystresses the relational aspects of trust20 Tashihuro Yamagishi on the other hand pro-vides a different albeit still rational conceptualization distinguishing between trust andassurance While he views assurance as based on encapsulated interest social trust isembedded in skills of ldquosocial intelligencerdquo namely ldquothe ability to detect and process signsof risk in social interactionsrdquo21 Both the encapsulated interest and social intelligence con-cepts of trust imply that trust and trustworthiness are inextricably linked

Finally Rothstein draws a middle ground between the normativemoral and therationalistcalculating approaches pointing to the notion of social capital as containingelements of both subjective rationality and ethics Thus he agrees with Peter Sztompkarsquosdefinition of trust as a ldquobet on the future contingent actions of othersrdquo22 and defines socialcapital as the ldquosum of the number of social contacts multiplied by the quality of trust inthese relationshipsrdquo23 Indeed this definition seems to be very close to Francisco Herrerosrsquosapproach to trust as a well-grounded expectation about the preferences of other people24

Overall Uslanerrsquos ldquomoralisticrdquo approach is the main well-established norm-drivenconception of trust as opposed to ldquostrategicrdquo rational choice approaches25 Indeed heviews moralistic trust as inherited through socialization and not dependent on personalexperiences or the presumption of othersrsquo trustworthiness

In the last decade the work on trust has gone hand-in-hand with theoretical work onthe refinement of the concept of social capital itself which has led to its deconstructioninto three separate and almost mutually exclusive typologies A first is the notion ofsocial capital as ldquobondingrdquo sometimes called ldquounsocial capitalrdquo26 It refers to the innerstrengths of primary social groups such as families clans and neighbors in a communityin defense of the grouprsquos interests and as basic copingmechanisms for individuals in timesof natural disasters and man-made crises and in the absence of institutions27 A secondnotion most widely subscribed to is social capital as ldquobridgingrdquo meaning the associa-tional capacity of a community to express dense networks of social exchange whichare viewed as countering bonding forces Much of the empirical work including a sub-stantial body of comparative studies aimed at measuring the stock of social capitalin communities today is focused on bridging28 A third notion is social capital as ldquolink-ingrdquo29 It refers to the mechanisms which enable a communityrsquos associational capacitynamely bridging social capital to express itself through interactions with political institu-tions thus contributing to the production of public goods and policy outcomes at largeThis is the least researched of the three deconstructed notions of social capital perhapsbecause it entails longitudinal rather than cross-sectional studies while ultimately it iscritical for public policy aims

In sum social capital is widely considered a crucial component of a governanceparadigm that has become known as participatory governance30 and a key variableaffecting the achievement of social and economic cohesion and hence the levels ofeffectiveness and efficiency in almost any area of public policy at large31


478

The Challenge of Measurement Theoretical and Methodological ApproachesWithin this theoretical framework measuring social capital is difficult partly due tothe coexistence of multiple definitions of what constitutes social capital and partly be-cause it involves elusive and intangible proxies Three main theoretical and methodo-logical approaches to the empirical research on and the measurement of social capitalcan be identified one experimental one anthropological and one based on mass sur-veys32 While experimental research methods are employed primarily by economists andsocial psychologists and the anthropological approach with its thick observations isassociated with one of the classics in the field33 in political science mass surveys con-stitute the most common method for measuring social capital Hence this article con-centrates primarily on the latter In this framework the literature on measuring socialcapital rooted in the definition of the concept by Coleman34 suggests that identifyingsocial capital is a two-fold process first the cultural dimension that is identifyinggeneralized trust mainly through mass survey data and second the structural dimen-sion namely identifying networks of civic engagement through survey data on mem-bership in voluntary-community organizations (NGOs)35

However while it is widely accepted that capturing the structure-culture interplayshould lie at the core of the process for measuring social capital a wide variety of othervariablesproxies directly or indirectly related to social capitalmdashthe so-called deter-minant andor outcome measuresmdashmay also be incorporated into the measurementexercise In that respect Deepa Narayan and Michael F Cassidy among others haveproposed a broader investigation employing three types of measures the social capitalmeasures which include a variety of variables such as social trust group membershipgeneralized norms and volunteerism the determinant (of social capital) measureswhich are mainly focused on socio-psychological and identity variables such as lifesatisfaction pride and identity36 and communication variables such as television view-ership papers readership and radio listenership37 and finally the outcome (of socialcapital) measures which may include variables such as perceptions and measures ofcorruption38 confidence in institutions39 political interest40 inequality41 and heterogeneity42

Yet recent research has substantially transformed the debate and shifted the emphasistoward the role of institutions equality and homogeneity as crucial determinant mea-sures and toward effectiveness and efficiency with regard to public policy outcomes asthe most important outcome measures of social capital43 Nonetheless although thesevariables are very important for building social capital there is ambiguity with regardto their logic of causality that is what causes what Yet given the importance of thelinking form of social capital for political sciencepublic policy the ambiguity in relationto the role of public institutions and the statersquos institutional infrastructure at large isparticularly crucial for public policymaking

As the existing research suggests social capital is an extremely complicated con-cept and therefore its investigation requires developing a reliable index incorporatingassociational membership and associational activism measures social trust as well asdeterminant and outcome measures (a three-stage approach) The main international sur-veys used in social capital research are the World and European Value Surveys (WVS


479

EVS) the European Social Survey (ESS) and more recently the Eurobarometer44

Table 1 categorizes the indicators and proxies used in measuring social capital

Despite the shortcomings indentified by several scholars in relation to the methodsand measures used in social capital research and especially in research on social trust45

mass survey instruments techniques and outcomes are mostly reliable especially at theaggregate level

What Does Social Capital Do Outcomes of Social Capital

The expansion of the literature on social capital has been closely linked to its concep-tualization as a crucial tool and precondition for several valuable and beneficial out-comes for the polity and the society as a whole such as the provision of public goodsthe well-functioning of democratic institutions and democracy at large The theoreticalunderpinning of these beneficial effects lies in the fundamental roles of social capital in

Table 1 Indicators Used in Social Capital Research

Social Capital ResearchDeterminant(SourcesOrigins) Measures

Social Capital Measures Outcome Measures

Socio-psychological andidentity measures(life-satisfaction prideand identity)

Social Networks Membership(Voluntary ndash Associational -NGO memberships activitiesinvolvement rates ofengagement work relationshellip)

Well-being happiness

Communication variables(television viewership papersreadership radio listenership)

(Structural aspects) Institutional and policyperformance ndash positive policyoutcomes and confidence inpublic institutions

Demographic traits (agegender class race maritaland parental statushellip)

Generalized (social)trust measures

Economic growth -development

Occupation status (workinghours kind of workemployment statushellip)

(Cultural aspects) Political interest andpolitical participation(voting party membershipactivities intensityhellip)

EducationQuality of institutions(institutional infrastructure)perceptions and measuresof corruptionInequality heterogeneity


480

overcoming dilemmas of collective action resolving principal-agent problems andtherefore achieving collective action at large The rational choice approach accountsfor this function in the capacity of social capital to reduce transaction costs whilethe sociologicalhistorical institutionalist school views social capital as a resource foraction that influences actorsrsquo behavior in seeking higher levels of collective actionSocial capital is viewed as the crucial ingredient of institutional infrastructure that isconducive to and associated with many positive outcomes especially in the broad areasof improving public policymaking and democratic institutions

Social Capital Good Governance and Public Policy Performance As stated at theoutset the relevance of social capital to good governance and public policy performancedraws on its capacity for resolving dilemmas of collective action such as the provi-sion of various forms of public goods and avoiding a situation known as social trap46

Indeed public goods constitute prisonersrsquo dilemmas that is they can be enjoyed byeveryone regardless of whether one has contributed to their provision The interestingpart of these dilemmas according to Bo Rothstein is the irrelevance of traditionaltheories about rationality which presume that actors make choices according to theirpreferences in prioritizing how to maximize utility Yet in dilemmas of collective ac-tion the choices made by agents actually depend on the expectation of what others willdo47 As Diego Gambetta has pointed out ldquoit is necessary not only to trust others beforeacting cooperatively but also to believe that one is trusted by othersrdquo48

More specifically Carles Boix and Daniel Posner have identified five mechanismsin an attempt to disentangle the relationship between social capital institutional perfor-mance and good government The first points to social capital as a tool for empoweringand actually transforming citizensmdashthrough achieving collective actionmdashinto ldquosophis-ticated consumers of politicsrdquo in an environment of electoral competition dominated byrational voters and competitive elites According to the second mechanism social capi-tal facilitates the achievement of rule compliance through the reduction of transactioncostsmdashthat is making it cheaper by reducing the need for bureaucratic complex andexpensive mechanisms of enforcement The third mechanism underlines the benefitsof civic virtue namely the social capital-driven shift from particularistic to morecommunity-oriented concerns of citizens that in turn promotes good governance Thefourth mechanism refers to social capital as a tool for achieving bureaucratic effi-ciency through its capacity to facilitate the resolution of collective action problemswithin state bureaucracies and thus to promote better coordination between principalsand agents at any hierarchical levels Finally the fifth model identifies social capital asa crucial concept for achieving consociationalism among antagonistic elites withoutusing formal institutions49

Recent research has examined the impact of several social capital indicators ongovernment performance across all fifty states of the United States The findings vindi-cate a strong correlation between levels of social capital and overall performancealthough they do not tell us much about how the mechanism of this correlation works50

Additionally with regard to sectoral performance social capital is positively correlated


481

with performance in human resources and information technology Eric Uslaner andMitchell Brown on the other hand using US state-level data have found that socialcapital is positively correlated to both political and communal participation although its im-pact seems to be weaker on the level of political participation than on the communal one51

Finally social capital is also considered a key concept in the academic debate onthe impact of Europeanization andor modernization processes on domestic policy andinstitutional change This is primarily because of its role in facilitating the learning pro-cess among actors within policy networkspolicy communities which is viewed as afundamental precondition for domestic policy change52

Overall there is strong evidence that social capital through its capacity for resolvingcollective action problems plays a key role in achieving institutional performance thusimproving the functioning of democratic institutions and democracy at large as well aspublic policy outcomes in almost all policy areas

Social Capital and Economic Development The relationship between social capitaland economic prosperity growth and development is well established in the literature53

Moreover according to one of the early students of the link between social capital andgrowth social capital appears to be a more important variable than human capital in thegrowth equation54

Nonetheless the relevant literature raises a crucial question regarding the directionof causality In other words whether economic growth and development are indeed out-comes of social capital or actually one of its determinants or whether there is a two-waycausation between the two variables is ambiguous Additionally a comparative analysisof the results of two main studies in the fieldmdashStephen Knack and Philip Keeferrsquos studybased on a sample of twenty-nine countries and Paul J Zak and Stephen Knackrsquos studybased on a sample of forty-one countriesmdashpoints to the impact of both sample size andsample composition on the results given that the findings of the latter are much morerobust than in the former and point to a steady impact of social capital and social truston growth rates over the period 1970ndash199255

Finally US time trajectory data raise questions about this relationship While levelsof social capital in the United States dropped gradually over the period 1960ndash2000 annualgrowth rates appeared to be stationary Thus trust cannot be considered the strongestpredictor of growth at least in the United States

How Social Capital is Created Determinant Variables

The interest and research on the determinants of social capital has been motivated byincreasing evidence that social capital is highly correlated to beneficial social economicand political outcomes and better public policy performance and by the variation insocial capital endowments in various cases the most striking of which is the declininglevel of social capital in the United States Therefore there is widespread concern aboutwhether or not and how trust and subsequently social capital can be created particularly


482

where it is needed and in short supply Obviously this concern is particularly relevantto regions and countries where the condition of social capital and civil society is con-sidered generally poor as in the postcommunist countries of Central Eastern Europe(CEECs)56 and the Cohesion countries of the European Union such as Greece Spainand Portugal57 Yet there is controversy and ambiguity with regard to the list of thepotential determinant variables of social capital In that respect four broad categories ofvariables appear in recent empirical work on the interconnectedness between socialcapital and other crucial explanatory variables These are first the civil societycivicness variables used by scholars investigating the ways membership and par-ticipation in voluntary organizations serve as sources of social capital second thequality of state institutions and the institutional infrastructure at large as well as in-equality as crucial variables affecting the creation and generation of social capitalthird the ethnic andor racial heterogeneity variables and their impact on social capitalendowments and fourth the communication-related variables such as television view-ing and newspaper readership and their potential role in the erosion or strengtheningof social capital

Civil Society Social Networks and Social Capital The role of participation in civilsociety and associative networks in the creation and generation of trust norms of reci-procity and subsequently bridging and linking social capital is of crucial importance forthe theory of social capital and can be traced back to John Stuart Mill and Alexis deTocqueville More recently it has been operationalized indeed in a popular way byPutnam Putnamrsquos approach to the creation of social capital is in many respects similarto Charles Sabelrsquos notion of ldquostudied trustrdquo which is based on the hypothesis that ldquotrustis a constitutivemdashhence in principle extensivemdashfeature of social liferdquo58 In other wordstrust is conceived of as a component of social life and therefore its creation involvesthe function of ldquolearning to cooperaterdquo through actorsrsquo participation in civil society net-works This however is considered a slow long-term process Yet Sabelrsquos argumentunderscores the cumulative character of social capital Thus trust and other forms ofsocial capital such as norms and networks are viewed as ldquomoral resourcesrdquo that isldquoresources whose supply increases rather than decreases through use and which becomedepleted if not usedrdquo59 In this theoretical framework as Putnam put it the creation anddestruction of social capital are marked by virtuous and vicious circles60 This pre-sumption however has engendered criticisms focusing on its historicism and pathdependence logic while several scholars have questioned its underlying assumptionof spillover effects from learning to trust other co-members in civic associations totrusting unknown people in more general contexts61

These criticisms go hand-in-hand with a wide range of empirical studies posingserious doubts about the role of civic participation and engagement in creating socialtrust and social capital at large Some of these studies question the importance of civicassociations on the ground that most people spend little time in these organizations62

while other studies report only a weak relationship between membership in civic orga-nizations and generalized trust inverting the causal arrow that is from generalized trust


483

to civic participation63 Other studies vindicate this finding pointing to the relationshipbetween social trust and civic engagement64 as well as to the sixty-nation study carriedout by Delhey and Newton which shows that ldquovoluntary membership and activity doesrather little for generalized social trustrdquo65 given that the measures of voluntary and ac-tive membership used in this study fail multivariate tests vis-agrave-vis other groups of vari-ables such as quality of government modernization and ethnic fractionalization Inthe same vein Paul Whiteleyrsquos cross-national analysis finds that participation in civicassociations has only a very weak impact on social trust66 while Peter Hallrsquos UnitedKingdom study does not find a stable over-time relationship between levels of associa-tional membership and generalized trust67 Finally in a comparative study of the UnitedStates Germany and Sweden Dietlind Stolle finds that generalized trust is not createdby membership in civic associations because the skills people learn through the mem-bership experience constitute private and not universal social capital which is used inthe group context and cannot be generalized to other settings68

Another matter related to both citizensrsquo activism and social capital and trust is theinterconnectedness between social capital and political participation and activism Thisrelationship however is not as straightforward as it seems to be In particular onlyassociation membership appears to be positively related to political engagement whilethe correlation between social trust and political activism is very weak69

Finally the role of civic interactions in the creation of social trustcapital isclosely associated with the problematique of ldquocrossing the great dividerdquo70 and sub-sequently with the debate between the ldquoendowmentsrdquo and the ldquoconstructabilityrdquo ap-proaches to state-society synergies The former adopts the disjunction ldquostrong state-weakcivil societyrdquo and emphasizes the dependence of successful state-society synergiesand the creation of social capital on a preexisting strong civil society and thereforepoints to a long-run process for success while the latter stresses the possibility ofsocial capital building in the medium term through synergistic relations between statemarket and civil society actors In this respect a concern with regard to the role ofthe state in promoting collective action and building social capital through successfulstate-society synergies has emerged relatively recently especially within the institu-tional literature71 The evidence of successful synergies with a key role attributed tothe state comes from areas of the globe (that is Third World countries) where socialcapital is in demand72

Overall as the institutional literature on the European experience suggests thestructure and the degree of centralization of the state and the strength of civil societyconstitute crucial parameters that determine the administrative capacity of the state andshape the publicprivate relations Thus the main features of the state structure in termsof bureaucratization centralization and clientelism can account for the way in whichareas of public policy are regulated and state-society relations are shaped73

ldquoThe Fundamentals Strike Backrdquo Institutions Inequality and Social Capital Theinstitutional literaturersquos critique of the main assumptions of the civil societynetworksapproach to the creation of social capital gave rise to a fundamental shift in social capital


484

theory and research over the last decade or so from the civil society and bottom-upapproach back to traditional political science concepts such as institutions and equalityas sources of social capital In this theoretical framework the institutional theory oftrust attributes an important role to the perceptions of fairness and impartiality of publicinstitutions on the part of citizens as a crucial variable affecting the creation of gen-eralized trust and the building of social capital74 Hence what matters for the buildingof social capital is the impartiality and universalism of formal state institutions andpublic policymaking structures at large This is particularly true for the universal (thatis Scandinavian) model of welfare state as the main pillar or guarantor of universalismthrough its capacity for securing equal respect and concern and basic capabilities to allcitizens as opposed to the selective and conservative types which involve a substantialamount of means-testing75 In that respect the universal welfare state along with theimpartial street-level bureaucracy as guarantor of impartiality are viewed as the maincomponents of the statersquos formal institutional infrastructure appropriate for generatingtrust and building social capital

In a similar vein Herreros suggests that formal social and political institutionsmdashas providers of external solutions to dilemmas of collective actionmdashplay a key role inthe creation of social capital in two important respects first a direct one as guarantorsof agreements that is sanctioning agents and second an indirect one as facilitatorsof increased participation in associations and hence of building civil society andsocial capital through the provision of relevant incentives While the former functionrefers to the role of social and political institutions in the form of impartial state(street-level) bureaucracy the latter refers to the universal welfare state In a broaderperspective Herrerosrsquos approach to the role of state institutions in enhancing general-ized trust is consistent with Levirsquos rational choice-based perspective which viewsldquogoodrdquo institutions as absorbers of the risk associated with trusting other people Insum institutionalist theorists emphasize the importance of institutions for enforcingnorms that are conducive to social trustcapital through a mechanism that Rothsteinhas called ldquocollective memoriesrdquo76 The term refers to the formation of peoplersquos percep-tions about the functioning or malfunctioning of institutions on the basis of experiencefrom everyday life situations such as the corruption in dealings with bureaucrats Inthis respect perceptions of corruption such as those collected by Transparency Inter-national are widely used as an important proxy of institutional performance and con-fidence in institutions at large

Yet Uslaner criticized institutional explanations on the grounds that generalizedtrust does not seem to depend to any large extent on individual experiences with institu-tions and hence does not depend on the assessed trustworthiness of others77 Anotherschool of criticism views institutions as substitutes for rather than builders of general-ized trust and conceptualizes how collective action could be achieved without trustthrough institutional design78

Inequalitymdashalong with institutionsmdashconstitutes the second crucial variable or pillarof the ldquofundamentals strike backrdquo approach to social capital theory Indeed given thatincreased levels of inequality tend to be regarded as a common phenomenon in several


485

developed industrialized countries particularly the Anglo-Saxon ones and especiallythe United States79 inequality has recently emerged as a crucial variable negativelyaffecting the level of social capital Uslaner in particular who is credited with intro-ducing the notion of ldquomoralistic trustrdquo and identifying the role of moral values in thecreation of social capital through the socialization process has argued that incomeinequality is the single most important variable affecting the level of generalized trustand social capital at large80 His findings establish a link between equality optimismand generalized trust and point to cross-country differences in income inequality thatcan account for a large part of cross-country differences in the levels of social capitalwith the United States considered the most striking case in this regard ldquoDonrsquot get richget equalrdquo Uslaner suggests with regard to building cooperative relations and socialcapital81 In the same vein Delhey and Newton have found that income inequalityand Protestant traditions significantly affect the levels of generalized trust

Moreover Uslaner also links inequality with corruption particularly high-levelcorruption Although the institutional literature views corruption of all sorts (that is petitas well as high-level corruption) as a symptom of malfunctioning institutions that has anegative impact on the level of inequality Uslaner points in the opposite directionmdashthathigh inequality leads to high corruption and low trust and then to more inequality thusidentifying the relationship between inequality corruption and trust as a case of theldquoinequality traprdquo82

However there are significant weaknesses in Uslanerrsquos account of the relationshipbetween inequality and levels of social capital The case of the United Kingdom isparticularly interesting in this respect As Hallrsquos findings demonstrate83 the coexistenceof relatively high levels of inequality and high levels of social trust and social capitalbetween 1980 and 1990 in the United Kingdom indicates another missing variable inthe interrelationship between inequality and social trust

Thus although strong evidence supports the hypothesis that equality and particu-larly the universal welfare state has played a key role in the solid development of socialcapital especially in the Scandinavian countries social capital constitutes an intrinsicelement of the domestic institutional infrastructure in other countries of Western Europeas well with selective and conservative models of the welfare state and relatively highlevels of inequality such as the United Kingdom and France Thus the policies of theuniversal welfare state and equality cannot be considered preconditions for buildingsocial capital Yet the crucial relevant issue is the distribution of social capital Indeedas Herrerosrsquos findings show while at the aggregate level these countries particularly theAnglo-Saxon ones demonstrate generally high levels of social capital a more detailedlook reveals huge differences along class andor culture strata whereby social capital ismostly identified with a middle class-dominated spontaneous decentralized characterof voluntarism (for example charities)

In sum while the impartiality and fairness of political and social institutions ingeneral and street-level bureaucracy in particular constitute a prerequisite for the crea-tion of generalized trust and the building of social capital the universal welfare state is anecessary condition for greater equality in its distribution


486

Ethnic Heterogeneity and Social Capital The relationship between social capital andethnic or racial heterogeneity is also complicated While the link between economicequality and social capital has long been established recent research points to a relation-ship between inequality and heterogeneity or diversity Indeed the fundamental as-sumption is that anything that increases the social distance between citizens such asincome inequality or ethniccultural cleavages has a potentially negative impact ongeneralized trust and social capital This is consistent with Whiteleyrsquos early findingsthat the strength of sociocultural or national or ldquoimagined communityrdquo identities mayplay a determinant role in social capital variation across countries andor regions In thatrespect one should intuitively expect that ethnic heterogeneity would have effectsdetrimental to social capital as well84

Obviously the underlying hypothesis is that ethnic heterogeneity would be con-ducive to the development of bonding (intra-ethnic) social capital at the expense ofbridging (interethnic) social capital In particular there is evidence that socially hetero-geneous societiesmdashthat is those that are ethnically linguistically religiously and cul-turally mixedmdashin contrast to homogeneous states or societies tend to have a poorereconomic performance spend less on public goods and deliver these less efficiently andless fairly They also tend to bemore corrupt and less redistributiveMost importantly someevidence indicates that mixed societies have lower levels of social trust civic cooperationand social capital as well as lower rates of participation in voluntary associations85 Withregard to the latter the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (CBS) a majorstudy of the United States carried out by Putnam has found that in an era of increasing levelsof immigration and therefore even more ethnically diverse societies despite the multiplepositive effects of immigration on host countriesmdashsuch as enhanced economic growthand creativity and eased fiscal burden of the pension systemsmdashinterracial trust is substan-tially lower in ethnically diverse communities at least in the short run Furthermore thereis some evidence that immigration may trigger anomie and social isolation at large Thusas Putnamrsquos findings demonstrate residents of ethnically diverse communities are lesslikely to trust people in their neighborhoods including people of their own ethnic group86

Moreover ethnic diversity in communities seems to be a contextual factor that increases theeffects of class Overall the main findings of the CBS are that while increased diversity andimmigration are inevitable and tend to benefit both the receiving and sending countries inthe short term immigration and ethnic diversity challenge community cohesion Howeverover the long run the social deconstruction of ethnic and majority identities and the socialreconstruction of a broader identity can take place in successful immigrant societies87 Ina similar vein Delhey and Newton report a clear negative relationship between levels ofethnic heterogeneity and levels of generalized trust and social capital across countrieswhile a study by Dietlind Stolle Stuart Soroka and Richard Johnston based on USand Canadian surveys has found that the percentage of ldquovisible minoritiesrdquo in a neighbor-hood actually reduces the probability that members of the majority express generalizedtrust both in the US and Canada88

On the other hand Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser and Nolan McCarty KeithPoole and Howard Rosenthal have identified a link between racial heterogeneity and less


487

income redistribution resulting in higher levels of inequality89 In particular Alesina andGlaeser have found that racial heterogeneity can account for approximately one-half of thedifference in the degree of redistribution between the United States and Europe with theother half attributed to the role of political institutions such as electoral systems and welfarestates In a similar vein McCarty Poole and Rosenthal have also identified heterogeneityand especially illegal immigration as a source of inequality and polarization in US politicsThis is because lower-income people are increasingly likely to be illegal immigrants with-out voting rights (noncitizens) and so politicians feel little pressure to redistribute giventhat the relative income of the majority of voters has not significantly deteriorated

However some evidence shows that the relationship between ethnic heterogeneityand social capital may vary across or within countries Thus Marc Hooghe has suggesteda number of variables that could mediate the impact of ethnic heterogeneity on general-ized trust and social capital at large90 Other studies drawing primarily on evidence fromNorthern Europe (Nordic countries Netherlands) and Canada point in a different direc-tion namely that the impact of heterogeneity may depend in part on political institu-tions and that the less democratic they are and the less predictable the rules of theirgame heterogeneity will more likely result in comparatively low levels of social trustpresumably because political inequalities like economic and social ones produce ten-sion conflict political resentment and low support for the political system For thisreason more inclusive and less divisive forms of state institutions in general and thewelfare state in particular tend to be associated with higher levels of social capital91

Overall the above analysis suggests that social capital is a territorially specificconcept and therefore there is no reason to believe that ethnic diversity would impactpreexisting stocks of social capital on an equal basis across space Hence there is ahuge variation in the impact of diversity on the level of social capital between but alsowithin the United States and the EU Additionally there may be a case that both cor-ruption and ethnic heterogeneity feed inequality thus in turn deteriorating the alreadylow level of social capital with serious consequences for performance in public policyIn that respect the interplay between corruption heterogeneityimmigration inequalityand low social capital may constitute a vicious circle that might become an explosivemix for several countries andor regions Obviously this is particularly true for countriesof Southern andor Central Eastern Europe

Communication Variables and Social Capital Recently the literature has empha-sized the importance of communication variables such as television viewership news-paper readership and radio listenership as potentially crucial determinants of thedevelopment or erosion of social capital92 In particular based on his study of thepervasiveness of television culture throughout American society Putnam argued thattelevision viewing may have a negative impact on the level of social capital in theUnited States93 Television viewing gradually came to be considered a cause of erosionof social capital increasing levels of civic malaise and malaise in US public life at largeConversely radio listening newspaper reading and personal use of the internet werefound to be either positively correlated or at least neutral to the level of social capital


488

However other research suggests that the relationship between civic engagementand television viewership may be more complex In particular while the amount of tele-vision viewing in general seems to support the Putnam thesis other evidence regardingwhat American viewers tune into suggests that watching news and particularly currentaffairs programs does not necessarily damage the democratic health of society and mayeven prove beneficial94

Thus on the one hand television viewing seems to be a crucial negative variable orpredictor of associational membership and participation in civil society organizations atlarge while news and politics watching appears to play a positive role (that is the moreyou watch the more you participate) Additionally radio listening newspaper readingand personal use of the internet play a positive and potentially crucial role in civil par-ticipation civic engagement and in social networking

Social Capital Endowments Dynamics of Cross-Country Variation

The levels of social capital vary significantly across countries The evolution of cross-country variation over time constitutes an important aspect of social capital researchHowever an interesting dimension of this pattern is its interconnectedness with the maindistinction in social capital theory between the culturalist (primarily Putnamian) and theinstitutionalist approaches to the origin of social capital as analyzed above

Indeed research based on WVS ESS and Eurobarometer data over the last twodecades or so reveals relatively clear patterns in the levels of social capital across spaceand time In particular as social capital indexes combining measures of associationalmembership and social trust demonstrate the Nordic countries (Norway SwedenDenmark and Finland) and the Netherlands stand out with the higher levels of socialcapital The countries of northwest continental Europe and East Asia demonstratemodest to high levels of social capital lagging behind the Scandinavians The levelof social capital appears to be particularly low in South American South East Europeanand postcommunist countries Finally the United States appears to be an exceptionalcase when compared to the relative stability in the levels of social capital observed inother countries given the overwhelming evidence that the level of social capital hasgradually eroded since the 1970s95 Yet among EU countries two observations deservereference with regard to the variation in social capital first the particularly low score ofItaly and second the particularly high score for West Germany and the particularly lowone for the eastern parts of the country96

Moreover despite the fact that research on social capital does not go back morethan twenty-five to thirty years levels of social capital appear to be stable across timeand space97 This evidence supports the culturalhistorical approach to the origins ofsocial capital which suggests that social capital is embedded in strong cultural and his-torical traditions However the exceptionalism of the US case on the one hand andthe distinction between the Anglo-Saxon and ScandinavianNordic types of socialcapital and civil society on the other whereby the former is identified with a middle


489

class-dominated bottom-up spontaneous decentralized character of voluntarism (suchas charities) and the latter with a rather more centralized and eventually more equal civilsociety point in a different direction Given the role attributed to social and politicalinstitutions in relation to the origin of social capital by the institutionalist approachesthey seem to be gaining ground and becoming more relevant in accounting for thecross-country variation in the levels of social capital

Conclusion

Social capital has emerged as a key concept in the social sciences in recent decadesbecause it correlates with normatively desirable qualitative features of liberal democracyand governance such as responsive democratic institutions and increased levels ofcivicness and citizensrsquo participation in social and public life Moreover it correlates withincreased levels of performance in such policy areas as education health and develop-ment Yet the bulk of the literature on social capital over the last fifteen years has beendominated by a fundamental and crucial theoretical dichotomy On the one hand theculturalhistorical approach views social capital as an independent variable embeddedin and generated by culturally and historically determined networks of civic engage-ment On the other hand the institutionalist approach conceptualizes social capital asan intervening variable crucially influenced by formal institutional structures of thepolity such as the welfare state as well as by other societal variables such as degreesof equality and racial andor ethnic homogeneity Therefore while these approachesconverge with regard to the impact of social capital on the functioning of democraticinstitutions and public policy there is theoretical controversy regarding its origins

Variations in the levels of social capital in case studies challenge both the culturalhistorical and the institutionalist approaches to its origin and suggest a constructivecombination of the insights and findings of the two main schools At this point re-search employing the thick description of the culturalhistorical school may provideevidence for an ldquoinstitutions vs culturerdquo interplay and synergy whereby institutionsas humanly devised constraints might play a key role in providing incentives to counter-balance potentially negative cultural traditions with regard to social capital creationBrazil Singapore and Hong Kong may be exemplary cases in this respect

NOTES

An earlier draft of this paper was prepared in 2008-09 when I was Stanley J Seeger Visiting Research Fellowat the Program in Hellenic Studies Princeton University Its support is gratefully acknowledged

1 Bo Rothstein Social Traps and the Problem of Trust (New York Cambridge University Press 2005)2 James Coleman ldquoSocial Capital in the Creation of Human Capitalrdquo American Journal of Sociology

Vol 94 Supplement (1988) 95ndash1203 Although Coleman is considered the scholar who introduced and analyzed the term he credits Glenn

Loury with introducing the concept into economics as the social resource useful for the development of human


490

capital See James Coleman Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1990) 300ndash01

4 Coleman ldquoSocial Capitalrdquo 985 Robert D PutnamMaking Democracy Work Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton NJ Princeton

University Press 1993) 1676 For a definition of community see Sara Singleton and Michael Taylor ldquoCommon Property Collective

Action and Communityrdquo Journal of Theoretical Politics 43 (1992) 309ndash247 Coleman ldquoSocial Capitalrdquo 98 Coleman Foundations of Social Theory 302ndash048 Coleman Foundations of Social Theory 3179 See Charles Sabel ldquoStudied Trust Building New Forms of Cooperation in a Volatile Economyrdquo in

Explorations in Economic Sociology ed Richard Swedberg (New York Russell Sage Foundation 1993)104ndash44

10 Putnam Making Democracy Work11 Coleman Foundations of Social Theory 25112 Elinor Ostrom ldquoA Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Actionrdquo

American Political Science Review 921 (1998) 1ndash2213 Putnam Making Democracy Work 17214 Coleman Foundations of Social Theory 10215 Ostrom ldquoA Behavioral Approachrdquo16 See inter alia Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor ldquoPolitical Science and the Three New Institutionalismsrdquo

Political Studies 449 (1996) 36ndash5717 Eric Uslaner The Moral Foundations of Trust (New York Cambridge University Press 2002) 1818 Russell Hardin Trust and Trustworthiness (New York Russell Sage Foundation 2002) and Hardin

Trust (Cambridge Polity 2006)19 Margaret Levi and Laura Stoker ldquoPolitical Trust and Trustworthinessrdquo Annual Review of Political

Science 3 (2000) 475ndash50720 Jan Delhey and Kenneth Newton ldquoPredicting Cross-National Levels of Social Trust Global Pattern or

Nordic Exceptionalismrdquo European Sociological Review 214 (2005) 31121 Tashihuro Yamagishi ldquoTrust as a Form of Social Intelligencerdquo in Trust in Society ed Karen S Cook

(New York Russell Sage Foundation 2001) 126 Yamagishi ldquoCross-Societal Experimentation on Trust AComparison of the United States and Japanrdquo in Trust and Reciprocity ed Elinor Ostrom and James Walker(New York Russell Sage Foundation 2003) 352ndash70

22 Piotr Sztompka ldquoTrust Distrust and Two Paradoxes of Democracyrdquo European Journal of SocialTheory 1 (1998) 21

23 Rothstein Social Traps 6624 Francisco Herreros The Problem of Forming Social Capital Why Trust (New York Palgrave

Macmillan 2004)25 Uslaner Moral Foundations26 See Margaret Levi ldquoSocial and Unsocial Capital A Review Essay of Robert Putnamrsquos Making

Democracy Workrdquo Politics and Society 241 (1996) 45ndash5527 See Deepa Narayan ldquoBonds and Bridges Social Capital and Povertyrdquo (Washington DC World Bank

1998)28 See Robert D Putnam ed Democracies in Flux The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary

Societies (New York Oxford University Press 2002) Bob Edwards Michael W Foley and Mario Diani edsBeyond Tocqueville Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective (Hanover NHUniversity Press of New England 2001)

29 See Peter Evans ldquoGovernment Action Social Capital and Development Reviewing the Evidence onSynergyrdquo World Development 246 (1996) 1119ndash32 Partha Dasgupta and Ismail Serageldin eds SocialCapital A Multifaceted Perspective (Washington DC World Bank 2000)

30 See Kenneth Erickson ldquoPolitical Leadership Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation StereotypesRealities and Some Lessons that Academic Political Analysis May Offer to Democratic Governments paperpresented at the conference on Democratic Transition and Consolidation Madrid October 2001

31 See inter alia Susan Saegert Philip Thompson and Mark Warren eds Social Capital and PoorCommunities (New York Russell Sage Foundation 2001) Catherine Campbell ldquoSocial Capital andHealth Contextualizing Health Promotion within Local Community Networksrdquo in Social Capital CriticalPerspectives ed Stephen Baron John Field and Tom Schuller (Oxford Oxford University Press 2000)Christos J Paraskevopoulos and Robert Leonardi eds ldquoLearning from Abroad Regionalization and Local


491

Institutional Infrastructure in Cohesion and CEE Countriesrdquo Regional and Federal Studies Special Issue143 (2004)

32 See Peter Nannestad ldquoWhat Have We Learned About Generalized Trust If Anythingrdquo Annual Reviewof Political Science 11 (2008) 413ndash36

33 Edward Banfield The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (New York Free Press 1958)34 Coleman Foundations of Social Theory35 See inter alia Deepa Narayan and Michael F Cassidy ldquoA Dimensional Approach to Measuring Social

Capital Development and Validation of a Social Capital Inventoryrdquo Current Sociology 492 (2001) 59ndash102William Mishler and Richard Rose ldquoWhat are the Origins of Political Trust Testing Institutional and CulturalTheories in Post-Communist Societiesrdquo Comparative Political Studies 341 (2001) 30ndash62 Putnam MakingDemocracy Work Robert D Putnam Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival of American Community(New York Simon and Schuster 2000)

36 Paul Whiteley ldquoThe Origins of Social Capitalrdquo in Social Capital and European Democracy ed MarcoMaraffi Kenneth Newton Jan Van Deth and Paul Whiteley (London Routledge 1999) 25ndash44

37 Pippa Norris ldquoThe Impact of Television on Civic Malaiserdquo in Disaffected Democracies WhatrsquosTroubling the Trilateral Countries ed Susan J Pharr and Robert D Putnam (Princeton NJ PrincetonUniversity Press 2000) 231ndash51

38 Donatella della Porta ldquoSocial Capital Beliefs in Government and Political Corruptionrdquo in DisaffectedDemocracies ed Pharr and Putnam 202ndash28

39 Kenneth Newton and Pippa Norris ldquoConfidence in Public Institutions Faith Culture or Performancerdquoin Disaffected Democracies ed Pharr and Putnam 52ndash73

40 Jan Van Deth ldquoInteresting but Irrelevant Social Capital and the Saliency of Politics in Western EuroperdquoEuropean Journal of Political Research Vol 37 (2000) 115ndash47

41 Eric Uslaner Corruption Inequality and the Rule of Law The Bulging Pocket Makes the Easy Life(New York Cambridge University Press 2008)

42 Robert D Putnam ldquoE Pluribus Unum Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century The 2006Johan Skytte Prize Lecturerdquo Scandinavian Political Studies 302 (2007) 137ndash74

43 See inter alia Bo Rothstein ldquoSocial Capital in the Social Democratic Staterdquo in Democracies in FluxThe Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Societies ed Robert D Putnam (New York OxfordUniversity Press 2002) 289ndash332 Bo Rothstein and Dietlind Stolle ldquoSocial Capital and Street-LevelBureaucracy An Institutional Theory of Generalized Trustrdquo paper presented at the ESF Conference SocialCapital Interdisciplinary Perspectives Exeter UK September 2001 Francisco Herreros ldquoThe Problem ofForming Social Capitalrdquo Eric UslanerMoral Foundations Uslaner Corruption Putnam ldquoE Pluribus Unumrdquo

44 See Christos Paraskevopoulos ldquoInterpreting Data from Special Eurobarometer 223 as Measurements ofSocial Capitalrdquo Final Report prepared for the European Commission DG-V (Employment and Social Affairs)2005

45 See Edward Glaeser David Laibson Jose Scheinkman and Chjristine Soutter ldquoMeasuring Trustrdquo TheQuarterly Journal of Economics 1153 (2000) 811ndash46

46 See Rothstein Social Traps47 Rothstein ldquoSocial Capitalrdquo 29048 Diego Gambetta ldquoCan We Trust Trustrdquo in Trust Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations ed

Gambetta (Oxford Blackwell 1988) 21649 Carles Boix and Daniel Posner ldquoSocial Capital Explaining Its Origins and Effects on Government

Performancerdquo British Journal of Political Science 4 (1998) 690ndash9350 Stephen Knack ldquoSocial Capital and the Quality of Government Evidence from the United Statesrdquo

American Journal of Political Science 46 (2002) 772ndash8551 Eric Uslaner and Mitchel Brown ldquoInequality Trust and Civic Engagementrdquo American Political

Research 31 (2003) 1ndash2852 See Christos J Paraskevopoulos ldquoSocial Capital and the PublicPrivate Divide in Greek Regionsrdquo

West European Politics 212 (1998) 154ndash77 Paraskevopoulos Interpreting Convergence in the EuropeanUnion Patterns of Collective Action Social Learning and Europeanization (London Palgrave 2001)Paraskevopoulos ldquoSocial Capital Learning and EU Regional Policy Networks Evidence from GreecerdquoGovernment and Opposition 362 (2001) 253ndash77 ldquoDeveloping Infrastructure as a Learning Process inGreecerdquo West European Politicsrdquo 282 (2005) 445ndash70 Paraskevopolous ldquoSocial Capital and PublicPolicy in Greecerdquo LSEHellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and SE Europe (GreeSE Paper No 92007) Paraskevopoulos and Leonardi ldquoLearning from Abroadrdquo

53 See in particular Putnam Making Democracy Work Dasgupta and Serageldin Social Capital


492

Christiaan Grootaert and Thierry Van Bastelaer eds The Role of Social Capital in Development AnEmpirical Assessment (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2002) Paraskevopoulos InterpretingConvergence in the EU

54 See Paul Whiteley ldquoEconomic Growth and Social Capitalrdquo Political Studies 48 (2000) 443ndash6655 Stephen Knack and Philip Keefer ldquoDoes Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff A Cross-Country

Investigationrdquo Quarterly Journal of Economics 654 (1997) 1251ndash88 Paul J Zak and Stephen KnackldquoTrust and Growthrdquo Economic Journal 111 (2001) 295ndash321

56 See Mishler and Rose ldquoWhat are the Originsrdquo Richard Rose ldquoA Bottom-Up Evaluation ofEnlargement Countries New Europe Barometer 1rdquo (Glasgow University of Strathclyde Studies in PublicPolicy No 364 [2002]) Marc Howard The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (NewYork Cambridge University Press 2003) Janos Kornai Bo Rothstein and Susan Rose-Ackerman edsCreating Social Trust in Post-Socialist Transition (New York Palgrave 2004)

57 See Antigone Lyberaki and Christos Paraskevopoulos ldquoSocial Capital Measurement in Greecerdquopaper presented at the OECD-ONS International Conference on Social Capital Measurement London2002 Paraskevopoulos ldquoDeveloping Infrastructurerdquo Paraskevopolous ldquoSocial Capital and Public PolicyrdquoParaskevopoulos and Leonardi ldquoLearning from Abroadrdquo Dimitri Sotiropoulos ldquoFormal Weakness and InformalStrength Civil Society in Contemporary Greecerdquo discussion paper (LSEHellenic Observatory 2004)

58 Sabel ldquoStudied Trustrdquo 14059 Gambetta ldquoCan We Trust Trustrdquo 5660 Putnam Making Democracy Work 17061 See Carles Boix and Daniel Posner ldquoMaking Social Capital Work A Review of Robert Putnamrsquos

Making Democracy Work Civic Traditions in Modern Italyrdquo Harvard University Centre for InternationalAffairs Working Paper Series No 96-4 1996 Filippo Sabetti ldquoPath Dependency and Civic Culture SomeLessons From Italy About Interpreting Social Experimentsrdquo Politics and Society 241 (1996) 19ndash44 LevildquoSocial and Unsocial Capitalrdquo Sidney Tarrow ldquoMaking Social Science Work Across Space and Time ACritical Reflection on Robert Putnamrsquos Making Democracy Workrdquo American Political Science Review902 (1996) 389ndash97

62 Kenneth Newton ldquoSocial Capital and Democracy in Modern Europerdquo in Social Capital and EuropeanDemocracy 3ndash24

63 Uslaner Moral Foundations64 Herreros ldquoProblem of Forming Social Capitalrdquo65 Delhey and Newton ldquoPredicting Cross-National Levelsrdquo 32366 Whiteley ldquoOrigins of Social Capitalrdquo67 Peter Hall ldquoSocial Capital in Britainrdquo British Journal of Political Science 29 (1999) 417ndash6168 Dietlind Stolle ldquoClubs and Congregations The Benefits of Joining an Associationrdquo in Trust in

Society 202ndash4469 See Van Deth ldquoInteresting but Irrelevantrdquo70 See Elinor Ostrom ldquoCrossing the Great Divide Co-production Synergy and Developmentrdquo World

Development 246 (1996) 1073ndash8771 Ibid72 Evans ldquoGovernment Action Social Capital and Developmentrdquo73 Juumlrgen Grote ldquoInterorganizational Networks and Social Capital Formation in the South of the Southrdquo

Working Paper European University Institute RSC No 199738 (Florence EUI 1997) ParaskevopoulosldquoSocial Capital and PublicPrivate Dividerdquo Paraskevopolous Interpreting Convergence in the EuropeanUnion Paraskevopolous ldquoSocial Capital Learningrdquo

74 See Rothstein ldquoSocial Capitalrdquo Rothstein Social Traps Rothstein and Stolle ldquoSocial Capital andStreet-Level Bureaucracyrdquo

75 Ibid Bo Rothstein Just Institutions Matter The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal WelfareState (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998) Staffan Kumlin and Bo Rothstein ldquoMaking andBreaking Social Capital The Impact of Welfare State Institutionsrdquo Comparative Political Studies 38(2005) 339ndash65

76 See Rothstein Social Traps77 Uslaner Moral Foundations78 Karen Cook Russell Hardin and Margaret Levi Cooperation Without Trust (New York Russell Sage

Foundation 2005)79 See Larry Bartels Unequal Democracy The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton NJ

Princeton Univesity Press and Russell Sage Foundation 2008)


493

80 Eric Uslaner ldquoProducing and Consuming Trustrdquo Political Science Quarterly 115 (2000) 569ndash90Uslaner Moral Foundations

81 Uslaner Moral Foundations 25582 Uslaner Corruption 23ndash5783 Hall ldquoSocial Capital in Britainrdquo 43284 See Delhey and Newton ldquoPredicting Cross-National Levelsrdquo85 See Putnam ldquoE Pluribus Unumrdquo Dora L Costa and Matthew E Kahn ldquoCivic Engagement and

Community Heterogeneity An Economistrsquos Perspectiverdquo Perspectives on Politics Vol 1 (2003) 103ndash11Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara ldquoParticipation in Heterogeneous Communitiesrdquo The QuarterlyJournal of Economics 1153 (2000) 847ndash904 Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara ldquoWho TrustsOthersrdquo Journal of Public Economics 852 (2002) 207ndash34

86 Putnam ldquoE Pluribus Unumrdquo87 Ibid88 Dietlind Stolle Stuart Soroka and Richard Johnston ldquoHow Diversity Affects Attitudinal Social Capital

A US-Canada Comparisonrdquo paper presented at workshop of the Citizenship Involvement DemocracyProject December 2005 Georgetown University Washington DC

89 Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser Fighting Poverty in the USA and Europe A World of Difference(Oxford Oxford University Press 2004) Nolan McCarty Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal PolarizedAmerica The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (Cambridge MA MIT Press 2006)

90 Marc Hooghe ldquoSocial Capital and Diversity Generalized Trust Social Cohesion and Regimes ofDiversityrdquo Canadian Journal of Political Science 40 (2007) 709ndash32

91 See Bo Rothstein and Eric Uslaner ldquoAll for All Equality Corruption and Social Trustrdquo World Politics58 (2005) 41ndash72 Bo Rothstein and Dietlind Stolle ldquoSocial Capital Impartiality and the Welfare State AnInstitutional Approachrdquo in Social Capital Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective ed MarcHooghe and Dietlind Stolle (Basingstoke UK Palgrave 2003) 191ndash209

92 See Pippa Norris ldquoDoes Television Erode Social Capital A Reply to Putnamrdquo Political Science andPolitics 293 (1996) 474ndash80 Norris ldquoThe Impact of Television on Civic Malaiserdquo Putnam Bowling Alone

93 Putnam Bowling Alone94 Norris ldquoDoes Television Erode Social Capitalrdquo Norris ldquoThe Impact of Television on Civic Malaiserdquo95 See inter alia Putnam Bowling Alone Dietlind Stolle and Marc Hooghe ldquoInaccurate Exceptional

One-Sided or Irrelevant The Debate about the Alleged Decline of Social Capital and Civic Engagement inWestern Societiesrdquo British Journal of Political Science 35 (2005) 149ndash67 Robert Wuthnow ldquoThe UnitedStates Bridging the Privileged and the Marginalizedrdquo in Democracies in Flux ed Putnam (Oxford OxfordUniversity Press 2002) 59ndash101

96 See Paraskevopoulos ldquoInterpreting Data from Special Eurobarometer 223rdquo97 See Nannestad ldquoGeneralized Trustrdquo


494

tool that by facilitating ldquocertain actions of actors within the structurerdquo2 leads to the cross-ing of the old schism between structure agency and culture Although James Colemanrsquosdefinition of social capital as ldquoa set of inherent social-structural resources in the socialorganization that constitute capital assets for the individualrdquo implies that it refers to indi-vidual actors3 social capital is crucial for facilitating collective action among corporateactors as well ldquobecause purposive organizations can be actors just as persons can rela-tions among corporate actors can constitute social capital for them as wellrdquo4 Thus socialcapital is not of any individual or group Rather it is a relational concept that refers ldquotofeatures of social organization such as trust norms and networks [of civic engagement]that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action5 Thereforevoluntary cooperation is easier in communities that have inherited a substantial stock ofsocial capital6 Those societies do not view the pursuit of collective goods as contradictingor conflicting with the pursuit of maximizing individual or group wealth Coleman hasdefined social capital as follows

ldquoSocial capital is defined by its function It is not a single entity but a variety of entitieswith two elements in common they all consist of some aspect of social structures andthey facilitate certain actions of actors-whether persons or corporate actors-within thestructure Like other forms of capital social capital is productive making possible theachievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be possible For example agroup whose members manifest trustworthiness and place trust in one another will beable to accomplish much more than a comparable group lacking that trustworthinessand trusthellip Like physical capital and human capital social capital is not completelyfungible but may be specific to certain activitieshellipUnlike other forms of capital socialcapital inheres in the structure of relations between actors and among actors It is notlodged either in the actors themselves or in physical implements of productionrdquo7

Fundamentally social capital constitutes another form of capital along with physi-cal and human capital Yet social capital has the characteristics of a public good whereasconventional capital is considered to be a private good In this respect like all publicgoods it tends to be undervalued and undersupplied by private agents which means thatsocial capital more than other forms of capital needs to be nurtured supported andenhanced in order not to be depleted Thus social capital may often be produced as aby-product of other social activities8

Trust constitutes the most important component of social capital It is linked to thevolatility and hence uncertainty of modern economic and institutional settings and isthe crucial conceptual mechanism to resolve this uncertainty by shaping the relationsbetween partners and facilitating collective action ldquoTrust the mutual confidence thatno party to an exchange will exploit the othersrsquo vulnerability is today widely regardedas a precondition for competitive successrdquo9 However given that modern economiesand societies require the diffused form of trust how does personal trust becomes socialtrust This crucial issue within social capital theory is closely linked to the intercon-nectedness between trust and networks of civic engagement Indeed according to RobertPutnam social (generalized) trust in modern complex settings can arise from two relatedforms of social capital norms of reciprocity and solidarity on the one end and networks


476






477







478






479






















480








481











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






477







478






479






















480








481











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494







478






479






















480








481











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






479






















480








481











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






















480








481











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494








481











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494











482






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






483







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494







484






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






485







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494







486






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






487






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494






488








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494








489


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494


Conclusion



NOTES






490























491























492



















493














494























491























492



















493














494























492



















493














494



















493














494














494

social capital: summing up the debate on a conceptual tool of comparative politics and public policy

Documents