Understanding the Relationship Between Social Capital and Political Disaffection in the New Post-Communist Democracies

Among the many important questions raised in the Introduction to this book figure two key issues. First, how is political disaffection related to the performance of democracies? And second, what is the relationship between political disaffection and various aspects of social capital? In this chapter we address both of these questions in a comparative analysis of the post-communist democracies of East Central Europe (ECE).