Social capital and political support: a re-assessment of the putnam thesis in East and West Germany

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4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A sizeable scholarly literature has generally uncovered weak, statistically trivial
connections between social capital and political support, in spite of its logical
appeal. Much of this research, however, has adopted an overly restrictive
research design. It has overwhelmingly focused on the impact of social trust
on political trust, from which broad inferences about the utility of the social
capital perspective have been made. Rarely, however, has the impact of social
capital been systematically assessed on indicators of political support which
are more diffuse in character. Using data drawn from the German General
Social Survey (ALLBUS), the present study analyses the impact of different
measures of social capital on political support in the Federal Republic of
Germany. The results strongly support the conclusion that social capital influences diffuse support.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)568-590
Number of pages23
JournalGerman Politics
Volume20
Issue number4
Early online date2 Nov 2011
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2011
Externally publishedYes

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