“Leaven” and “Yeast”: Social Capital and the Social Foundations of Democracy in Germany

摘要

Does social capital stimulate political support? Although scholars have arrived at equivocal answers to this question, the vast majority of this research has been overly restrictive in its measures of social capital and democratic attitudes, focusing almost exclusively upon connections between social and political trust from which broad inferences about the social capital perspective have been made. Rarely, however, has the impact of different manifestations of social capital been examined on a range of democratic attitudes. Using ALLBUS data from the Federal Republic of Germany, this study subjects the social capital perspective to empirical testing, by systematically examining the impact of five manifestations of social capital on two measures of political support. The results strongly confirm that social capital influences democratic attitudes which are more diffuse in character.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0965156X.2010.533864