ABSTRACT
Societies with high stocks of social capital will be better off economically and politically than societies with low stocks of social capital. Social capital, understood as dense, horizontal networks of civic engagement and generalized norms of trust and reciprocity, seems to be the driving force for democratic performance and economic prosperity (e.g. Putnam 1993; Knack and Keefer 1997; Harrison and Huntington 2000). The definition put forward by Putnam of social capital closely links the attitude of generalized trust with the presence of structures like associations and associational membership. Both attitudes and structures thus form the two main components within the social capital debate. As such, large numbers of associations and elevated levels of associational membership tend to go hand in hand with high generalized trust scores. Taken together, they point to a vibrant civil society with large social capital stocks (Putnam 1993).
