Political Sociology - Civic Culture and Social Capital

To find/ ask

Critique of Paxton 2002

When is Social capital good/bad?

GOOD: Important factor influencing: 1) quality of democracy 2) Economic performance 3) Health BAD: 1) power elites have high levels of social capital

Distribution of Social Capital

Hall Young and Working Class lack social capital. Middle class have twice as many organisational affiliations

Does civic culture underpin civic participation?

John et al (2011): Consider whether different forms of civic participation are linked to the kinds of social attitudes expected by civic culture theory. 1) People who lobby their politicians are less trusting of institutions and less likely to think those in their neighbourhood would act to solve a social problem 2) Fondness for and identification with your neighbourhood increases participation 3) This is largely at odds with civic culture theory Hetherington and Husser (2011) 1) citizens whom express high levels of political trust are less likely to attempt to influence government.

Almond and Verba (1989) "The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations" Theory

Political culture is made up of cognitive, affective and evaluative orientations towards the political system. Orientations: 1) Cognitive orientation - "knowledge of and belief about the political system, its roles and the incumbents of these roles, its inputs and its outputs" 2) Affective orientation "feelings about the political system, its roles, personnel, and performance" 3) Evaluational orientation "judgments and opinions about political objects that typically involve the combination of value standards and criteria with information and feelings" Three basic kinds of political culture: 1) Parochial: No cognitive, affected or evaluative orientations toward the political system 2) Subject: Cognitive, affect and evaluative orientations toward the output aspects of the system but orientations toward input objects (like political parties) and the self are minimal 3) Participant: Cognitive, affective, and evaluative orientations toward both input and output aspects of system Congruent with: 1) Traditional 2) Authoritarian 3) Democratic system Congruence is indicated by positive affective and evaluative orientations in the appropriate areas (NB there is a scale from alienation, through apathy to allegiance) To Almond and Verba, the Civic Culture is: 1) An allegiant participant political culture in which citizens can be seen to express participant, subject and parochial tendencies. 2) Citizens understand their democratic obligations, show system, input and output affect (political trust), subjective political competence, and yet retain their non-political attitudes and affiliations 3) A crucial component of the civic culture is that whilst citizens feel cognitively capable and politically obliged to participate in politics, they do not always feel the need to. They have a "reserve of influence". 4) Elites will recognise that the citizenry always has the potential to act and will thus use their power responsibly. 5) Every so often salient issues encourage citizens into participation, and for each citizen, different issues are salient - cycle of salient issues perpetuate the democratic myth. 6) Whilst individuals' primary groups will be homogenous in terms of partisan affiliation, such primary groups will be held above political confrontation. This helps to foster a social trust and cooperation across polity "For the democratic myth to be an effective force, it cannot be pure myth" The Civic Culture is a particular kind of political culture. They don't say that political culture causes democratic stability but say "A stable and effective democratic government... depends upon the orientations that people have to the political process - upon the political culture." Sources of the Civic Culture: 1) It is not solely taught in schools although this comes into it 2) One is trained in the civic culture in a variety of social institutions; family, peer group, school, work place etc 3) A Major part of political socialisation involves direct exposure to the civic culture and the democratic polity themselves. 4) In the US and Britain, the civic culture emerged only gradually and organically within a relatively stable sociopolitical context. From structural functional tradition which posit that if structures and institutions are to survive, they must promote social solidarity, or, once solidarity is achieved, system stability.

Dalton and Welzel (2014) The Civic Culture Transformed: From Allegiant to Assertive Citizens.

Result: Assertive not allegiant culture improves democracy

Links between Social Capital and Civic Culture

Social capital acts as driving force behind the key components of the civic culture.

What is Political Trust?

Important to differentiate between the objects of political trust; regime principles (system affect), regime performance (output), regime institutions (input).

Reverse Causation for political culture and social capital?

"Conceivably, better-performing state governments produce more honest, trusting, and trustworthy citizens with a more highly-developed sense of civic responsibility" - Knack 2002

Interpersonal Trust and Democracy

**Good for Democracy** 1) Associations only have positive impact in presence of high levels of social trust Who: Paxton ** Irrelevant for Democracy ** 1) It is an effect not a cause of democracy Who: Muller and Seligson 1994

Political Trust and Democracy

**Why is Political Trust important?** 1) Reduces System demands How : those with high levels of political trust less likely to try to influence system Who : Hetherington and Husser ; John et al 2011 2) Increases democracy (diffuse trust) How : those with high levels of system affect but low input/output affect (dissatisfied democrats) will work to improve democracy Who : Norris 1999 3) Override turbulence to remain stable How : diffuse support for democratic principles; vital for dissatisfied democrats 4) Slightly different - Support for gradual reform correlated with level of democracy Who : Muller and Selgison 1994 5) Increases participation in core institutions Trust in parliaments and legal system etc you will participate rather than be apathetic 6) Encourages voluntary compliance with law This enhances ability of government to pass and implement effective legislation without coercion. ** Not important ** 1) Political trust varies with issue salience and thus at any given time political trust due to salience of domestic issues as opposed to foreign issues Who: Hetherington and Husser Flaw: Need to separate types of trust 2) Only diffuse trust is important! the rest is an impediment to increasing democracy! —> critical citizens can be the catalyst that increases democratisation Who: Norris

Hall (1999) Social Capital in Britain

Key point 1: levels of social trust seem to have declined while membership in secondary associations remains high. This calls into question Putnam and other analysts of social capital post between the presence of secondary associations and high levels of social trust. Key point 2: Levels of social and political trust seem to respond to a range of factors beyond patterns of socialbility, which may well include the performance of government of the day. Thus low levels of social and political trust beed not lead to a retreat form political engagement. Key point 3: The government can and do affect the levels of social capital in their nation through education policies and social policies. This is VERY DIFFERENT from Putna, and A+V who argue its historical. Facts and Trends: 1) Average number of associational memberships among adult population grew by 44% between 59 and 90 2) Informal association (regular interaction with others in less formal settings such as socialising - pub - with friends and neighbours) Time spend doing this was at least as high in 84 as 61 3) Sizeable decline in social trust between 1940s and 1950s (mostly among working class) Overall: Though most indicators show rise in social capital - the key indicator of social trust shows a fall! Explaining levels of, and trends in, Social Capital: 1) Female Labour and decline of family does not seem to be correlated to social capital levels in UK 2) We watch more TV but no obvious television corrosion of social capital 3) "in short, social capital has been sustained largely in Britain by virtue of the increasing participation of women in the community" 4) "In Britain, at least, the level of social capital seems to be most strongly sustained by the middle class" → organisation affiliations increased 60% for MC and stayed stable for WC (last 30 years) 5) Government policy which allows voluntary sector to flourish and a social policy which makes extensive use of volunteers Explaining changes in Social Trust: 1) Urbanization - less familiar with neighbours and exposed to more crime (shit because less people proportionally live urban now than 50s 2) Thatcher effect - break collective traditions and promote individualism (shit cause trust was stable between 81 and 90 except for the under 30s) 3) Unemployment and economic conditions → high unemployment as social trust declined 4) Those who's value systems are self-regarding have lower levels of social trust. Social Capital and Democracy in Britain: 1) Participation and attentiveness to politics rates stable (during period considered) - "At the individual level...attentiveness to political issues and participation in politics shows a statistically significant relationship to the number of associations to which an invididual belongs" 2) Feelings of political efficacy and political trust reached relatively low levels in Britian by 1990s → fewer than half expressed confidence in parliament or civil service. Political trust correlated with social trust but not membership in associations.

How can social capital hinder democracy/ fail to help democracy?

1) Can aid Authoritarian institutions How : compliance to laws etc (same as for democracy) Who : Tarrow 1996 2) Can encourage mutual distrust between members and nonmembers How : bonding social capital Who : Knack 2002 Who : Paxton 2002 Evidence : Weimar Germany 3) Exacerbate existing cleavages How : bonding capital Who : Paxton 2002 4) Undermine democracy How : too much participation can put too much reformatory demand on governments Who : Norris 1999; Almond and Verba 1963 5) Benefits of increasing citizen control to just one group How : bonding social capital 6) Link is not very strong between social Capital and democracy How : low levels of social and political trust need not cause a retreat from participation Who : Hall 7) Social (interpersonal) Trust has no effect on democracy Who: Muller and Seligson 1994 Evidence : Argentina, Portual, and Spain refistered substantial increases in level of democracy from 1970s to 1980s despite relatively low levels of interpersonal trust 8) Associational membership does not help democracy (unless good government group) Knack 2002

How can social capital help democracy?

1) Overcomes collective action problems (think game theory - increases costs of defection) How : enables credible commitments Who : Putnam 1993 2) Enables a light touch democracy How : citizens will act in accordance with law as they are trusting of others Who : Putnam 1993 Evidence : North Italy contrased with South Italy 3) Reduces political tension bridging social capital can stretch across cleavages bringing together citizens with heterogenous policy preferences Who : Putnam 1993 4) Faciliatates agreement where political preferences are polarized Who : Knack 2002 5) Can Increase Democracy and Citizen control How : Allows networks to significantly challenge government; expression and discussion Who : Perez Diaz 2002; Paxton 2002 Evidence : Spanish transition to democracy; democracy in Eastern Europe 6) Increases participation How: Norms of participation Who : Paxton 2002 Who A + V : 1963 7) Social capital is the driving force behind key components of civic culture How: increases input ability and increases obligation to participate as participation becomes a norm (tenuous) 8) Help to maintain or improve an already existing democracy How: Associations teach tolerance, promote compromise, stimulate participation and train leaders Who : Paxton 2002

Tarrow (1996) Making Social Science Work Across Space and Time: A Critical Reflection on Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work

1) Putnam shows the South is different to the North, "But does this difference, and the variations in institutional capacity that produces it, predict democracy?" 2) Contra to Putnam's findings, recently there has been a growth in associational activity in the South of Italy according to Carlo Trigilia, "in part political, but above all cultural, which is shaping new possibilities on the level of democratic growth and the positive use of civic resources" 3) Also, in the north there has been corruption scandals on top of separatism, mafia infestation on top of years of terrorism and political terrorism 4) Why does Putnam look to the late-medival period for civic beginnings and not the late 16th century collapse at the hands of robust European Monarchies/ or its 1980s corruption fed economic growth/ or its 1919-21 genearation of facism → these phenomena were not civic!! 5) "How could Robert Putnam... have missed the penetration of southern Italian society by the northern state and the effect this had on the region's level of civic competence?" - for Putnam, the character of the state is external to the model... it shouldn't be... 6) Policy performance is a poor surrogate for democracy - "There is good evidence that the administrative structures of southern and northern Italy worked as differently under facism as they do today: would that make facist northern Italy more democratic than the South in Mussolini's heyday" 7) Basically Tarrow appears to be saying that Putnam found in history what he was looking for, neglecting historical traditions and facts that countered his stance/ opinion.

What does it mean for a democracy to 'work well'?

1) Stability - Almond and Verba 2) Output of democratic institutions - Putnam 3) Level of democracy - Muller and Seligson 1994 4) We can broadly say that a democracy works well when it balances elite power and citizen control to deliver policy outputs well-received by most citizens - Zoe Heilding

Distinctions within Social Capital

All from Putnam (2002) Informal vs formal: • Associations are only one form of social capital Thick vs thin: • Work mates who are also best friends vs the shopkeeper who says hello when you come into the store → still reciprocity is reinforced by thin social capital Inward looking vs outward looking • Outward looking concern themselves with public goods and vice versa Bridging vs Bonding

International Trends in Social Capital

Andersen et al (2006) consider time spent in civic association activity (community, political, church or TU meetings): 1) Stable or increasing in Canada, NL and UK 2) Decreasing among US women but not US men 3) Casts doubt on generational replacement argument for social capital decline in US Cabinet Office PIU/Strategy Unit report 1) Declining: US, Australia 2) Stable or ambiguous: UK (high); NL; Sweden; France (low) 3) Increasing: Japan; Germany (from low base). Hall (1999) looking at Britain 1) No decline in associational membership but has been a decline in trust since 1950s. 2) Sustained in Britain due to increasing social capital of women in community due to their higher education. Bo Rothestein looking at Sweden in Putnam (2002): 1) Mounting discontent with institutions 2) Reducing participation 3) Decline in economic performance 4) o Attributes this to a collapse of "organized social capital", that is trust within and among the major labour and business organisations 5) No evidence of damage to Swedish democracy as civic engagement and social connectedness remain stable. 6) Social trust and formal and informal association strong

Seymour Martin Lipset 1963 Contiental Divide

Canadian culture is more statist, deferential to leaders, collectivist and conservative. US is more independent, distrustful of government, individualistic, liberal and progressive

Putnam 1993 "Making Democracy Work"

Conception of institutional performance in this study: *Societal demands → political interaction → government → policy choice → implementation. *A high performance democratic institution must be both responsive and effective. Alternative explanations for institutional performance: 1) Institutional design - not relevant for this study as they are designed the same 2) Socio-economic factors 3) Socio-cultural factors Putnam measures of governmental effectiveness: • Cabinet stability • Budget Promptness • Statistical and Information Services • Reform legislation (pretty poor impressionistic approach) • Legislative Innovation • Day care centers • Family clinics • Industrial policy instruments (very subjective as to what is good and what is bad) • Agricultural spending capacity (again poor measure as its looking at speed of spending not quality of spending) • Local Health Unit Expenditures (poor measure - why should we just look at health even if it is a key function of the devolved governments) • Housing and Urban Development • Bureaucratic Responsiveness Indicators of Civic-ness 1) Vibrancy of associational life - associational membership 2) Newspaper readership (questionable?) 3) Referenda participation (Very questionable - different saliency of issues) 4) Preference voting - explicitly noting a candidate in elections rather than just the party (he says this indicators factionalism and patronage and is an indicator for absence of civic community but could also be result of high level of political awareness? Results: 1) Correlation r = .92 between institutional performance and social capital/ civic community. 2) Citizens in civic regions are happier with life correlation r = .87 between satisfaction with life and civic community Two social equilibria 1) "force and family provide a primitive substitute for the civic community" 2) "virtuous circles result in social equilibria with high levels of cooperation, trust, reciprocity, civic engagement, and collective well-being" Note that Putnam says the accumulation of social capital in different regions is the result of 1000 years of history - difficult to reproduce.... Issues: 1) Referendum turnout - not measuring social capital 2) Economic development could be causing everything - doesn't rule this out well enough. Correction between socio economic modernity and institutional performance is r = .77 3) Institutional Determinism as 'new' institutions employees from local communities 4) Limited to one country 5) Arbitrary weighting of measures for institutional effectiveness.

Muller and Seligson (1994)

Conclusion: 1) "Overall, the results of our analysis of causal linkages between levels of civic culture attitudes and change in level of democracy are not supportive of the thesis that civic culture attitudes are the principal or even a major cause of democracy" Idea: 1) A possibility is that civic culture attitudes are an effect rather than a cause of democracy. 2) "High levels of subjective political competence, pride in the system, and interpersonal trust are a rational learned response to the experience of living in a country that has a stable democratic regime" Data and Method: 1) Looks at and reforms Inglehart's study which found that (in a uni-directional study) civic culture had direct effect on stability of democracy 2) For their own test, the authors use the average political rights and civil liberties (THIS IS LOOKING AT HOW DEMOCRATIC A NATION IS, NOT HOW WELL DEMOCRACY WORKS!) 3) Multi-national study - 27 countries. Good thing! Results: 1) Support for gradual reform is correlated with the level of democracy (i.e. political culture is relevant) 2) Democratic stability has an impact on interpersonal trust (opposite direction of causation to Knack) 3) The composite index of civic culture has no significant effect in the level of democracy 4) Interpersonal trust has no significant effect on level of democracy 5) Interpersonal trust increases with continuous years of democracy. Interpersonal trust is higher when income inequality is lower. Issues:

Almond and Verba (1989) "The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations" Empirics

Cross-national survey research on five countries characterised them as: Italy: Alienated political culture. Low national pride, moderate and open partisanship, acknowledgement of obligation to participate locally, subjective competence. Mexico: Alienated and Aspiration. Mexicans confuse aspiration with performance; they are not competent but think they are. Germany: Political detachment and subject competence. Awareness of politics and political activity, though substantial, tend to be passive and formal. US: Participant Civic Culture. The role of the participant is highly developed and widespread. The participant role is highly developed, but the more passive roles of subject and parochial still persist, and are fused with the political system. The civic culture, then, is characterized by balance among the parochial, subject and participant roles. However in US the participant orientation is more developed than the subject orientation Britain: Deferential Civic Culture. The political culture in Great Britain also approximates the civic culture. The development of participant orientation in Britiain did not replace deferential subject orientation. Key points: 1) Main empirical regularity is that the more education have higher levels of subjective comeptence - they feel better able to "do something about a local regulation they consider unjust" Criticisms: 1) Only one time period 2) Dont know direction of causality 3) Only 5 countries 4) Poor comparison as US completely different to Mexico (Mexico barely democratic - would have been better to do Sweden as initially intended) 5) Correlation but no causation - just because UK and US are stable doesn't mean a civic culture as demonstrated in these nations is necessary 6) Authors climb the ladder of abstraction by rending the concept of 'political system' vague - is it synonymous with regime type or is it more proximate to the Marxist concept of superstructure? 7) Tripartie orientation sturcutre rarely used after first chapter

Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America

Democracy is successful because of a participatory culture and a belief in equality

Putnam (2002) "Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Modern Society"

Essential: Can't describe social capital purely in quantitative terms but must also consider qualitative terms General Points: 1) Studies have shown that social capital can boost economic development (Tanzania + Sri Lanka), reduce crime (UK + US), improve health (Finland). 2) o "Those communities endowed with a diverse stock of social networks and civic associations are in a stronger position to confront poverty and vulnerability, resolve disputes and take advantage of new opportunities." • "in some communities the bank president, the bank teller, and the bank janitor all turn out for community activities, but in other communities only the president does"

Effects of Political Culture and Social Capital

General Hypothesis: 1) Culture/ social capital influences political and social outcomes, especially the quality of democracy, governance or economic performance. General Problems: 1) Which aspects of civic culture/ social capital are relevant 2) Which are the correct mechanisms 3) Which is the correct causal direction? (see Hall for example)

Norris (2011) Democratic Deficit

General Model of Democratic Deficit: A) Demand Side: Rising public aspirations for democracy due to growing cognitive ability and self-expression values B) Intermediary: Negative coverage of government and public affairs by news media C) Supply Side: Failure of democratic or policy performance of state to match public expectations D) Democratic Deficit: Disparities between perceived democratic performance and public aspirations E) Consequences: for political activism, compliance with government and democratisation Central Argument: 1) Trendless fluctuations in system support (not decline) 2) Satisfaction with democratic performance generally lower than democratic aspirations 3) Gap is due to: 3a) growing public expectations 3b) negative media coverage 3c) falling government performance 4) But is ameliorated by income and social trust 5) Democratic deficit reduces political participation and voluntary law compliance 6) Democratic aspirations increase democratisation Issues: 1) Uses temporal ordering but does not control for prior levels of democracy 2) The dependent variable is referred to as democratisation but is a measure of the average level of democracy between 1995-2008 rather than a measure of change 3) correlations could be due to endogeny problems

What is Political Culture?

IS ABOUT ATTIDUES AND ORIENTATIONS TOWARDS THE POLITICAL SYSTEM Refers to the pattern of beliefs and assumptions ordinary people have towards the world, as these pertain to politics (Tepperman). Not same as ideology; more diffuse and less goal direct. Relatively stable over time and reproduced by political socialisation

What is Social Capital?

IS ABOUT SOCIAL INTERACTION AND TRUST Paxton (1999): Social capital requires two components: 1) Objective associations between individuals which link them in social space 2) A subjective type of tie. The ties between individuals must be of a particular type - reciprocal, trusting, and involving positive emotion. Concept goes back to Coleman and Bourdieu Definition (Putnam): 1) "The features of social life - networks, norms and trust - that enables participants to act together more effectively to pursue shard objectives." 2) It is a moral resource which serves as a kind of collateral which enables citizens to make credible commitments to one other, leading to mutual gain and surmounting of collective action problems. 3) Can be viewed alongside physical and human capital, but it is not owned or found within an individual Definition (Paxton): Requires objective network of ties among individuals that are trusting, reciprocal. It resides not in individuals but between them. Because social capital is not constrained to attitudes like the civil culture is, it captures relationships among citizens. Comes in different varieties: 1) Bonding: within groups (e.g. ethnicities, ages, social classes etc) 2) Bridging: between groups Measured by (Putnam): 1) Public engagement (voting, political action) 2) Inter-personal association (socialising, volunteering) 3) Inter-personal trust (NB which direction does this flow from above) Other ways of measuring social capita; 1) Associational membership 2) Number of INGOS 3) Social Trust 4) Charity Work 5) Informal Sociability 6) Census Complince

Ben-Nun Bloom and Arikan (2013) "Religion and Support for Democracy: A Cross-National Test of the Mediating Mechanisms"

Idea: 1) Religion can be a source of undemocratic attitudes but also a contributor to democratic norms 2) This article argues that different dimensions of religiosity generate contrasting effects on democratic attitudes through different mechanisms. 3) The private aspect of religious belief is associated with traditional and survival values, which in turn decrease both overt and intrinsic support for democracy. 4) he communal aspect of religious social behaviour increases political interest and trust in institutions, which in turn typically lead to more support for democracy. Data and Method: 1) Results from multilevel path analyses using data from fifty-four countries from Waves 4 and 5 of the World Values Survey Results: 1) Overall, the results support the hypotheses that the negative effect of religious belief on support for democracy is to a large extent mediated by values, and that the effect of social religious behaviour is mediated by the generation of social capital in the form of political interest and trust in institutions. 2) Ceteris paribus, the total negative effect of religious belief on support for democracy is stronger than the positive effect of religious social behaviour, with coefficients usually twice as large or more - this finding demonstrates the importance of disentangling the two dimensions of religiosity in studying democratic attitudes. 3) In addition, we find that once values are accounted for, religious belief has no direct effect on support for democracy, suggesting that specific religious teachings contribute to anti-democratic sentiments only in so far as they enshrine traditional and survival values. 4) To conclude, our findings suggest that it is not religious belief and religious behaviour in and of themselves that affect democratic attitudes, but the values and behaviour they teach to the religious individual. 5) This is an optimistic finding in the sense that it leaves room for intervention - for educating people about democratic values and norms.

John, Fieldhouse and Liu (2011) How Civic is the Civic Culture? Explaining Community Participation Using the 2005 English Citizenship Survey

Idea: 1) The assumption this article tests is that a set of orentations and dispositions held by citizens could lead to civic behaviour Results: 1) Neighbourhood affect - having positive feelins about the neighbourhood - has a positive effect on civic behaviour. 2) Citizens with low levels of political trust are more likely than others to engage in civic behaviour. 3) Note that results are conditional on other variables including age and education (both of which are far more important in explaining outcomes) 4) "A sense of belonging and feeling safe, coupled with a reluctance to trust public bodies to sort out community problems, provides the incentives for civic participation" Types of Civic Behaviour considered: o Influence institutions individually o Collective civic (influence institutions collectively) o Citizen governance o Community voluntarism

Hetherington and Husser (2012) How Trust Matters: The Changing Political Relevance of Political Trust

Interesting points: 1) "The amount of trust people convey and the impact it has will depend on what parts of government people are primed to consider" 2) "When international issues increase in salience, political trust goes up" 3) "We provide evidence that political trust affects the public's preferences and evaluations in the foreign policy domain, suggesting that trust influences public opinion in more areas than was previously known" 4) When defence issues become salient, people are primed to evaluate government trustworthiness with defense-based considerations in mind <<<<<< key conclusion for essay My summary: Suggests that political trust varies with issue salience and thus at any given time political trust may be low due to the salience of domestic issue as opposed to foreign issues. 9/11 is a key example. Following 9/11 political trust was very high, this is because, the authors argue, on foreign issues the public are generally more trusting of the government.

Norris (1999) Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government

Interesting points: 1) Political trust depends upon the object: trust in politicians, satisfaction with the workings of the democratic process, institutional confidence, electoral turnout. 2) The tensions between ideals and really are essentially health for future democratic government since this indicates the emergence of more 'critical citizens' or dissatisfied democrats' who adhere strongly to democratic values but who find the existing structures of representative government to be wanting. 3) The dissatisfied democrats can be viewed as less a threat to, than a force for, reform and improvement of democratic processes and structures as the third wave continues to flow. 4) In other words, a democratic political system requires a reservoir of diffuse support independent of immediate policy outputs (specific support) if it is to weather periods of public dissatisfaction. Types of political support: o Political Community o Regime Principles o Regime Performance o Regime Institutions o Political Actors Trends in Political trust: 1) There has been an erosion of public support for the core institutions of representative government, including parties and parliaments, in recent decades 2) The public's evaluations of how regimes function varied substantially between newer and established democracies. 3) Moreover there was little systematic evidence for a long‐term crisis in support for democratic principles or for the nation‐state. The fact of dissatisfaction does not imply danger to the persistence or furtherance of democracy. Only a highly active but small stage‐army of community leaders and organizers (the 'joiners') give a significant proportion of their adult life and emotional commitment to voluntary associations. School, family, work and neighbourhood are likely to have a far greater significance in origins of trust etc. Social trust is most strongly expressed, not by members of voluntary organizations, or even by their most active members, but by the winners in society, in so far as it correlates most strongly with education, satisfaction with life, income, class, and race. For that matter social trust is the prerogative of the winners in the world. Assumptions that social and political trust go togetherm move in harmony, or are somehow casually related do not seem justified

Paxton (2002)

Key Conclusions: 1) "Social capital affects democracy and... democracy affects social capital" 2) "Associations that are connected to the larger community have a positive effect on democracy, while isolated associations have a negative effect" Data and Method: 1) Cross-lagged panel study 2) World values survey provides measures of associations and trust 3) Also use membership of international NGOs in each country Results: 1) Social capital influences the equality of democracy - "The two components of social capital, mean number of associations and trust in 1980, affect democracy in 1991. Reciprocal path not found when using World values Survey Data 2) Democracy influences social capital - "The INGO analysis reveals significant cross-lagged effects for both democracy and social capital. The effects are not simultaneous but instead alternate by year - democracy has an effect on INGOs in the first time period, while INGOs affect democracy in the later time periods. 3) Results from WVS show that "connected associations have a strong positive influence on democracy, while isolated associations have a strong negative influence on democracy" 4) INTERESTING NUANCE - the impact of associations on democracy depends on the level of trust present in the society. At low levels of trust, increases in association memberships have a negative impact on democracy. Only when approximately 50% of the population is trusting do increases in associations lead to increases in democracy. Issues: 1) Most of the countries in study re in EUROPE. Other: Suggests that civic culture and social capital (as used by Putnam and Almond and Verba) are synonymous.

Knack (2002) Social Capital and the Quality of Government: Evidence from the States

Key arguments: 1) Aspects of social capital that are conceptually identified with generalized reciprocity (such as trust, volunteering and census response) are associated with better governmental performance. 2) In contrast, aspects of social capital identified with social connectedness (including activity in associations and informal socializing) are unrelated to governmental performance. Note maybe some positive and some negative effects. 3) Membership in 'good government' groups are positively and significantly associated with performance. THIS IS CONSISTENT WITH DISTINGUISHING GROUPS BY THEIR PURPOSES 4) When controlling for reverse causation the findings "£strongly support the interpretation that causality runs from social capital to government performance rather than from performance to social capital" What bits of government performance are affected by social capital? 1) Enhanced accountability 2) Willingness to compromise 3) Flexibility and innovation Issues: 1) Again, problems with causality - controls for other releveant instruments 2) Population is positively correlated with good governance - shows weakness of causal inference

Victor Peres-Diaz in Putnam (2002)

Looking at spain: 1) "As a fratricidal experience, the Spanish Civil War was the apotheosis of mistrust, the breakdown of a community, and, as a consequence, the destruction of social solidarity" 2) • "During the war, an extraordinary amount of social capital circulated within both camps. The civic engagement of the contenders could not have been greater." 3) • "the experience of solidarity on each side went hand in hand with an experience of terror" 3) o "when liberal democracy came at last, we find that a stock of social capital of the civil kind had already be accumulated. This was a reservoir of goodwill on which the political and social leaders of the late 1970s would draw in order to make the democratic transition and consolidation successful"

Trends in Political Culture

Norris (1999) argues that there has been declining trust in government and rising dissatisfaction with way democracy works in developed countries in recent decades. But people still think that democracy is the best form of government. And Norris (2011) argues there is really no systematic trend in satisfaction with democracy. (Norris) Specific support is mixed but diffuse support is strong: a) Political Community = High levels of support b) Regime Principles = High levels of support c) Regime Performance = Varied satisfaction d) Regime Institutions = Declining support e) Political Actors = mixed trends in trust Dalton (2014) People less likely to think politicians care now than in the past in USA, Canada, Sweden and West Germany. Significant decline.

Correlates of political culture

Norris argues that institutional confidence is influenced by: 1) Extent of political rights and civil liberties 2) electoral system 3) Economic Development 4) Being a supporter of the governing party 5) Some socio-demographic characteristics.

Trends in Social Capital

Putnam: 1) Social capital has been declining in the US mainly due to the demise of peculiarly civic war-time generation but also TV and other factors. 2) Putnam finds declining electoral turnout, public engagement with political parties, union membership and Church attendance Counter: Hall - no correlation between TV and decline in social capital Paxton (1999): 1) No trend in levels of social interaction 2) Declining trust in individuals and institutions in US Schwadel and Stout (2012): 1) Informal association with neighbours declining while informal association with friends outside neighbourhood increasing across birth cohorts 2) Formal association was competitively stable with exception of relatively high levels of formal association among early 1920s and early 1930s birth cohorts 3) Trust declined considerably across both periods and cohorts, though oldest cohorts are less trusting than those born in 1920s though 1940s 4) Complex pattern and not systematic decline across cohorts as suggested by Putnam

Paxton (1999) Is Social Capital Declining in the United States? A Multiple Indicator Assessment Good for critique of measurement of social capital

The problems with previous assessments of social capital indicate that the current debate over social capital in the United States amounts to a great deal of arguing over selective pieces of information, drawn from different sources and analyzed with weak statistical techniques. Idea: 1) Despite the amount of interest in a possible decline of US social capital, scholars have not reach a consensus on the trend 2) Putnam has claimed that social capital is in decline while others have argued that social capital has remained stable 3) This is because there is a large gap between the concept of social capital and its measurement 4) Many studies rely on single indicators of social capital. Social capital is a general concept and we should not expect that it can be captured with just one variable 5) Previous assessments of social capital are also milted by their singular focus on change in the level of social capital over time - another important question concerns a possible change in the dispersion. Data: 1) Analyses mulptie indicators of social capital over a 20-year period Method: 1) In this article, I address the limitations of previous research by provid- ing a model of social capital that makes explicit links to theory and ana- lyzes multiple indicators of social capital from the same data source. 2) With multiple indicators, I can more adequately gauge the concept of social capital and allow for measurement error. 3) See Picture for Paxton's measures Results: 1) Results do not consistently support Putnam's claim of a decline in social capital 2) Some decline in general measure of social capital, but this is mainly due to a strong and consistent decline in trust in individuals 4) Decline in trust in individuals 5) No General decline in trust in institutions 6) No decline in associations 7) Slight upward trend in associating outside the neighbourhood 8) No general trend in the dispersion of social capital over time Issues: 1) Uses institutional trust in social capital measure!