Structure of Social Capital in Europe, 2003

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CULTURE AND SOCIAL CAPITAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN EUROPE1 Dumitru Sandu University of Bucharest The paper lay the foundation for a sociocultural map o f Europe from the point o f view o f social capital. The social capital (SC) profile o f 21 European countries is measured by a set o f nine indicators referring to interpersonal trust, tolerance, association, and institutional trust. The configuration o f SC within Europe is to a large degree consistent with the map o f that continent from the point o f view of modernity and post-modernity values (Inglehart).The same three clusters of Catholic, Northern and former communist countries appear in the SC mapping as compared to the post-modernism one. Religion counts more in Western than in former communist countries as predictors of SC; Catholics tend to be less tolerant than other denominations in Western Europe; attitudes favourable to change are also favourable to high social capital - high tolerance especially - in the majority of analysed countries;old and agricultural men from the Western countries constitute a segment ofpopulation of lower SC. Questions and objective Debates on social capital (SC) encompass all the aspects of a concept working to unite very many different fields in the social sciences - economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, social psychology. Definitions, measurement, roots or causes, consequences and policies that could be associated to it are under discussion. By theoretical, methodological or action reasons some of the authors underline one or the other of the mentioned aspects (Portes, 1998). Criticism about the vague contour of the concept, of its ideological nature or about the difficulties to communicate with a multidimensional concept is also present in the debate. The topic of how is structured SC seems to be, in this context, of high relevance. How is trust related to cooperation and social network (Paldam, 2000) is an exemplary form of this debate. Even for trust per se are still many 1 The paper is based mainly on the use of World Value Survey data sets from second and third wave provided by UK Data Archive for the Project 8926 : ‘CompSCS Comparative approach of social capital structures’. Nuffield Collge from Oxford University granted to the author the data access opportunity. The responsibility on the way the data have been processed and interpreted bears totally to the author. The data set for Romania, at country level, is not part of WVSs but was produced by University of Bucharest and Quality of Life Research Institute. A first form of the paper treating only on social tolerance as part of social capital in Europe was presented into Sandu 2003, Romanian Journal of Sociology, XIV, 1-2, Bucharest, 2003

Transcript of Structure of Social Capital in Europe, 2003

CULTURE AND SOCIAL CAPITAL

STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN EUROPE1

Dumitru SanduUniversity of Bucharest

The paper lay the foundation fo r a sociocultural map o f Europe from the point o f view o f social capital. The social capital (SC) profile o f 21 European countries is measured by a set o f nine indicators referring to interpersonal trust, tolerance, association, and institutional trust. The configuration o f SC within Europe is to a large degree consistent with the map o f that continent from the point o f view o f modernity and post-modernity values (Inglehart).The same three clusters o f Catholic, Northern and former communist countries appear in the SC mapping as compared to the post-modernism one. Religion counts more in Western than in former communist countries as predictors o f SC; Catholics tend to be less tolerant than other denominations in Western Europe; attitudes favourable to change are also favourable to high social capital - high tolerance especially - in the majority o f analysed countries;old and agricultural men from the Western countries constitute a segment ofpopulation o f lower SC.

Questions and objective

Debates on social capital (SC) encompass all the aspects of a concept working to unite very many different fields in the social sciences - economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, social psychology. Definitions, measurement, roots or causes, consequences and policies that could be associated to it are under discussion. By theoretical, methodological or action reasons some of the authors underline one or the other of the mentioned aspects (Portes, 1998). Criticism about the vague contour of the concept, of its ideological nature or about the difficulties to communicate with a multidimensional concept is also present in the debate.

The topic of how is structured SC seems to be, in this context, of high relevance. How is trust related to cooperation and social network (Paldam, 2000) is an exemplary form of this debate. Even for trust per se are still many

1 The paper is based mainly on the use of World Value Survey data sets from second and third wave provided by UK Data Archive for the Project 8926 : ‘CompSCS Comparative approach of social capital structures’. Nuffield Collge from Oxford University granted to the author the data access opportunity. The responsibility on the way the data have been processed and interpreted bears totally to the author. The data set for Romania, at country level, is not part o f WVSs but was produced by University o f Bucharest and Quality of Life Research Institute. A first form of the paper treating only on social tolerance as part of social capital in Europe was presented into Sandu 2003,

R om anian Journal o f Sociology, XIV , 1-2, Bucharest, 2003

questions to be answered: what is the relation between interpersonal and institution trust? Are they forms of the same underlying social dimension? Some other structural questions are also relevant for the discussion but they are practically neglected: What about tolerance, for example, could it be considered as a non-social capital variable (Putnam, 2000) or as a specific form of it ?

This is the family of questions I address in the paper under the heading of ‘structure of social capital’. The application of the approach is a cross- cultural one for 21 societies of Europe, using World Value Surveys data .In the first part of the paper is presented an integrative view on ‘what is social capital’ and what are its components. The second part is devoted to describing the main clusters of country-profiles of SC in Europe and the third part introduce a set of regression models as to predict SC at individual level for each of the identified clusters of countries.

Social capital as basic equation of the social life

Networks, trust and cooperation are the most used terms on talking about social capital. For some, ties (Coleman, 1990 ) or networks are the core of the social capital (Lin,2001).For other approaches, trust (Fukuyama, 1995) or trust and cooperation (Putnam, 1993) . A variant of that view is supported by equating SC with ‘social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity’ (Putnam,2000: 21) The idea of reducing all other dimensions of social capital to trust is considered as the ‘social capital dream’ (Paldam, 2000).

The point of view in this paper is that none of the above dimensions are the core of social capital concept. All of them are part of a fundamental relation or equation of social life. Trust and cooperation have been long time ago considered as associated (Deutsch, 1973). But trust is not only good and does not bring all the time cooperation or public goods as payy-offs. It can bring easily corruption or amoral-familism. Cooperation does not results only from trust or pro-social attitudes but also from coercion (in totalitarian societies) or complementary private interests. By its consequences it is also ambivalent, one could cooperate for reciprocal benefit, for reciprocal benefit but also for bringing public goods or for reciprocal benefit against public life. Networks are like money - good for everything, for building or damaging social life, for charity and for mafia.

The three components of the SC have also a very different status : trust is a positive expectation that alter will comply with ego’s designs or wishes (Lin, 2001:147); networks are social relations conveying very different contents - information, power, commands etc.; cooperation is an action with multiple actors and a common goal or set of goals. Networking is not to be confused with networks. The last are relations structures and the first is an

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activity of building a structure with a specific use or a general means for different activities.

Actual or potential cooperation (COOP) is a function of trust (TR) , access social structures (networks, associations etc. STR) and rules of cooperation (RUL). As any social action, it involves other resources (RES) than networks (Table 1). It could be human or material capital. So, the basic equation of cooperation could be written as: COOP=A+Bi* TR +B2* STR+ B3*RUL (1)

where B 1....B 3 are vectors for parameters o f different particular equations .

What is social capital from the point of view of the previous decomposition of cooperation? Even if there are consistent differences among authors in defining the concept, ‘the consensus is growing in the literature that social capital stands for the ability of actors to secure benefits by virtue of membership in social networks or other social structures’ (Portes, 1998: 6).

Table 1. Social capital equation

V oluntary (potential or

a c tu a l) C ooperation=

uC0( 4 - 10

C /2

1O .4>t>3«3C /2

B ]*TR ust

I f TR=0, C O O P is c loser to the forced typeI f TR is positive bu t m inim al and in relation w ith very different persons o r patterns o f behaviours, could be equated w ith tollerance I f TR refers to institutional trust, C O O P could be potential C O O P or com pliance w ith the institutional dem andsT R could be also generalised or specific. Their relation is no t linear or predictable all the time.

GOO +B 2 *STRuctures A ccess structures could be netw orks,

associations o r organisations+ B 3*RULes o ftrust/cooperationbehaviours

R U L m ight be rules o f functioning o f an association, rules for coordinating jo in t efforts or even norm s o f specific or generalised reciprocity (Putnam , 2000: 20.21)

0)>+B 4*POSition PO S on m aterial, hum an, social or

sym bolic rankings o f capital•S 'o 220 0

+ B 5*RESources RES could be m aterial o r hum an capital pu t together fo r C O O P action

v t> +B 6*com plem entar In som e cases CO O P is engaged not0 'S

zy INTerests associated w ith

for its ow n purposes b u t as a m eans to reach other connected private

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COOP interests+B 7*other V A Lues than trust favoring COO P

V A L could be m oral o r religious beliefs that cooperation should be a ttended irrespective o f other param eters

Positions (POS), resources, interests and values are also factors that could intervene in the full equation of cooperation- COOP=A+Bi* TR +B2*STR+ B3*RUL B4.POS+B5*RES+B6*INT+ B7* VAL

In fact there is a certain hesitation in the social sciences to identify SC with the resources accessible through social connections’ (Lin, 2002:43) or with the access to social structures that allow for getting some resources. This second point of view is clearly stated by Robert Putnam: ‘ by ‘social capital’ I mean features of social life - networks, norms and trust - that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’ (Putnam, 1996:56).

I will go in line with this second point of view considering that individual social capital refers to a kind of stock of accessibility to structures of social life that could bring benefits to the ego. The higher the number of structures you can access for bringing benefits and the higher their potential for bringing benefits, the higher your relation or social capital stock. Reducing SC to the human or material capital one can get from access to social opportunity structures reduces its methodological value. One never knows exactly the values of different rewords or capitals that could be brought by accessing a certain set of structures as the majority of them are multifunctional.

Relational capital is always potential and sometimes converts into material, human or other forms of social capital or even in more subtle forms of capital of symbolic or affective nature.

All the three components of SC- trust, networks/associations and cooperation - can go independently, without the other: trust attitudes do not necessarily convert into cooperation behaviours ; generalised reciprocity of the type ‘something for nothing’ does not bring all the time trustworthiness or cooperation; cooperation could be, as we mentioned, forced or interested and accompanied of very low trust.

But the whole literature on SC indicates that the three sets of variables2 go together in a very large number of situations. In fact, SC is not about trust and networks but about ‘trusting networks and common values’ (Putnam, 2000: 312). Or, to put it differently ‘First, social capital requires an objective network

In a consistent way with our approach on social capital is the view of Van Schaik (2002:7) : ‘The main components o f social capital are trust, norms of reciprocity and engagement in networks’.

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of ties among individuals. Second it requires that the ties among individuals be trusting, reciprocal, and emotionally positive’ (Paxton, 2002:256). There is, for example, empirical evidence that trust and cooperation are frequently associated. Experimental economics proved that ‘cooperative behaviour in social dilemmas is tied closely with trusting behaviours but not necessarily with reciprocal behaviour’ (Chaudhuri, A., Sopher , B., Strand 2002:245). If cooperation and trust could be interpreted in terms of homo economicus, reciprocity does not. It is relevant for a different type, that of homo reciprocans (Chaudhuri, A., Sopher , B., Strand 2002). There is also empirical support to consider that trust networking5 goes together with tolerance (Putnam, 2000:356).

A great deal of debate emerges from using the concept of SC with in­group vs out-group references. Bonding or exclusive SC is mostly about in­group behaviours whereas bridging or inclusive SC is mostly about between groups social linkages. ‘Sectarian community’ for example is in Putnam’s view (Putnam, 2000: 355) a situation of high social capital (as networks and reciprocity) at the in-group level but low tolerance to the out-group. It is true that there are lots of such sectarian communities with in-group solidarity but between-groups conflicts. But the examples do not prove that tolerance and reciprocity/networks are in conflict at the level of the same social unit. It is only with reference to different social units that the inconsistency appears.

A measurement model of social capital

Social accessibility structures like networks or associations are forms of sociability. Trust and its minimal form - tolerance - are also ingredients of sociability. All of them are social capital to the degree they are ‘productive’, that is to say they contribute to cooperation actions or exchange relations of converting one resource into another, one form of social capital into another. The function of SC is ‘ to favour the positive definition of the interaction models and to reduce the costs of transactions in the processes of interaction. In a very synthetic way, it can also be said about SC that it is productive sociability that has consequences for the increase of stocks of capitals such as material, human or even social capital. Depending on the space of interaction

3 ‘Trust networking’ is the interpretation o f the ‘social capital index’ built by Putnam (2000: 434) for each the states o f USA. The index is an aggregation o f 14 variables. Two of them are aggregated figures at state level for the opinions indicating that “most people can be trusted’ and that “most people are honest’. Nine indicators measure the intensity o f association or community life in the state (charitable organisations, civic and social organisations, making community work, attending club meetings etc.). The rest o f three refers to voting turnout in presidential elections, visiting friends and “entertained at home’. The index indicate that the SC in the practice o f measurement is about sociability values (trust and honesty), association membership and community involvement.

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where the consequences of productive sociability appear, we can refer to personal social capital as well as family, communitarian, organizational and society capital.’ (Sandu, 1999:71). Community social capital, for example, could be defined from that point of view as the use of trust and cooperation (including the reciprocity norm) for the production of public goods or private goods for several members of the same community.

There could be forms of sociability structures (networks, associations) or values (trust, tolerance) that are not ‘productive’ meaning by that that they do not bring cooperation actions . It could be the case of neighbours that interact frequently on small everyday life topics but do not help each other in crisis situations. Even cooperation for consumption could be considered as a proof of SC to the degree it emerges from sociability structures and/or values.

Considering SC as ‘productive sociability’ is in line with Alexandro Portes’ conception of defining it as ‘shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability’ (Portes, 1998: 1). In his view, value introjection, bounded solidarity, reciprocity exchanges and enforceable trust are the main sources of SC as ‘ability to secure benefits through membership networks and other social structures’ (Portes, 1998: 8). For the purposes o f this paper I expanded the definition of SC to include all the values (trust and tolerance) and social structures (formal and informal networks , groups and associations) that could bring benefits or positive outputs of such actions4,

A more comprehensive view on the key measures o f SC as derived from the productive sociability concept is presented in Table 2. The rows of the table indicate the main components of the SC equation - tolerance cooperation and social networks. Each of the three components have specific measures function of the reference social unit for sociability relations or phenomena. Sociability behaviours and attitudes of the individual could have as relevant terms social units as: generalised other, associations, groups of similar status or similar marginal behaviours, family, local community and institutions.

Tolerance is considered to be a form of minimal trust. It is a way to consider that the stranger or the marginal are not dangerous. One can trust her or him for not being a source of harm for the ego. The opposite of trust is discrimination as attitude or behaviour of sanctioning in a negative way persons on the basis of their status or behaviours that are in fact unrelated to their effective behaviours. One can discriminate against marginal status groups of ethnic or religious or gender nature, or one can discriminate against marginal or deviant behaviours that are in fact weekly related to the risk ego perceives from the part of alter. Tolerance to minority or marginal groups

4 The definition adopted for SC in this paper is also consistent with that o f Pamela Paxton (2002: 256): social capital is the notion that social relations can facilitate the production o f economic and non-economic

goods’.

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could have, in different societies, a different intensity and different roots compared to tolerance towards groups of deviant behaviours.

It is clear that different persons in different periods of their life and social contexts relate differently to family, associations, marginal groups, institutions or generalised other. They can use the relations they have with the reference social unit in a more or less positive way . Such relations could be more or less productive from the individual point of view, could bring more or less benefits. The stock of SC hold by a person is an aggregation of an undefined pattern of all the measures of productive or positive sociability mentioned in table 2.

Table 2. Measures of social capital at individual level

..

.D

imen

sion

s

..............., , i iwm ţap 1 Reference social units structuring social caoital

ă i g g fg ifgg categories of

indicators

. . .

:generalised other and friendship

groups

i ------

------

------

-—s--

----

asso

ciat

ions

• ; •-

? :

1 >

I ,

■ ; *

. ‘ t

' ;

, '

,\.T

- r

\

groups of similar social status

(ethnic, religious, residentia

1 etc.)

groups of similar

marginal /deviant

behaviour groups

family

loca

l co

mm

unity

inst

itutio

ns

Tole

ranc

e an

d tr

ust tolerance

/discriminati­on attitudes

and behaviors

egalitarianvs

discriminati­on attitudes

toleranceof

diversitywithin

associati­ons

ethnic/religioustolerance

deviantbehaviourtolerance

trust attitudes and

behaviorsr v

diffuse trust, friendship

trust in co­

associates

inter­ethnic/

religioustrust

trust in groups of deviant

behaviors

familytrust

Institu­tionaltrust

c018.§u... "...S.

■ : —

' . ».*> y d r • ij

• • • ■ . . . participatory /cooperation attitudes and behaviours

pro-cooperation

attitudes

Cooperati­on within associati­

ons

openness for trans­

ethnic /religious cooperati­

on

cooperation with groups o f deviant behaviors

familysolidarityattitudes/behaviors

pro-

com

mun

ity

attit

udes

/ be

havi

ors

prop

ensit

y fo

r co

oper

atio

n pu

blic

ac

tion

cS u8 ' 1 C/3 <u

G

associationmembership

Associati­on

members­hip

involvem ent in

multicult ural

groups

personal use o f family pe

rson

al

use

of

com

mun

ity

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personal trans-personal network ethnic/reli networking network a c- network capital gious with groups capital I

networking capital out o f within groups of marginal 1 §association associati­ networks behaviors

.. .. .. : ... ons .5 o

Bold letter indicate categories of indicators used in this study for measuring social capital in European countries

Data and method

The first nine variables in Table 3 are the measures derived from Table 2 for measuring SC at individual level in 21 European countries. Data from second and third waves of World Value Survey, have been used, function of available comparable figures for the selected variables.

Being in search of an as structured as possible SC patterns, the cross- cultural analysis was limited to a set of 21 countries supposed to be more comparable by proximity and historical context. Consequently, Baltic and Former Soviet Union countries have been excluded from analysis.

Out of the nine variables , three are measures of institutional trust (in civil service, Parliament and order relations), three refer to tolerance and discrimination, one to association membership, one to value given to friendship in life and one to generalised trust. The selection is function of the concept of SC presented in Table 2 and data constraints from WVSs.

Table 3. Analysis variables

Nam e and label for the variable

Variable definition

Social capital variables1. Generalised trust TG EN ER A L

‘G enerally speaking, w ould you say that m ost people can be trusted or can ’t be too careful in dealing w ith people?’ (V27) Rcsacaling answ ers as to have 1 ‘m ost people can be trusted’ 0 ‘D o n ’t kn o w ’ and -1 ‘C an’t be too carefu l’

2. N on- discrim inatory behaviors N O N D ISC R IM

A verage o f three scales o f non-discrim inating w om en against m en (V61), old persons for early retirem ent (V 62) and ethnic m inorities (V 63) on the labor m arket. R escaled values o f 1 for non-discrim ination, -1 for discrim ination and 0 for D K

3. Friendship orientation FRIEN D

A ssessm ent that ‘friends are im portant ‘ for her/h is life . A four point direct scale (1 ‘very im portan t’, 0.5 ‘im portant’, 0 DK , - 0.5 ‘not very im portant’ and -1 ‘not a t all im portan t’)

4. Intolerance to groups o f m arginal social status

C ounting index o f the categories o f people - those o f different race (V52), im m igrants (V 57) and an ethnic m inority (v56) - the person w ould not like to have as neighbours. A fourth item

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Nam e and label for the variable

V ariable definition

STA IN TO LER counted for the index is m arked i f the respondent considers that Jew s (or funcţiona equivalent) is one category that threats social order. The index takes the values betw een 0 (tolerant) to 4 (highly intolerant).

5. Intolerance to groups o f deviant behaviors B EH IN TO LER

C ounting index o f categories o f people w ith special behaviors - those o f crim inal records (V51), political extrem ists (V53), heavy drinkers (V 54) , em otionally unstable (V 55) , having A ID S (V58) , drug addicts (V 59), hom osexuals (V 60) - the person w ould no t like to have as neighbours. The index takes the values betw een 0 (tolerant) to 7 (h ighly intolerant).

6. M em bership in associations A SSO C IA T

C ounting index o f the num ber o f associations the person is a m em ber (v28 to V36). The index takes the values betw een 0 (no association) to 9 (high m em bership). In the Rom anian version o f the questionnaire ‘fam ily agricultural associations’ replace ‘charity organization’.

7. T rust in order institutions TO R D ER

A verage o f the tm st scales for army, jud ic ial courts and police. Input scales are scored from 1 (m axim um tm st), 0.5, 0 (DK), - 0.5, to -1 (m axim um distm st).

8. T m st in parliam ent TPARL

T m st in parliam ent : scale is scored from 1 (m axim um tm st), 0.5, 0 (DK ), -0.5, to -1 (m axim um distm st).

9. T m st in civil service TCIV IL

T m st in civil service: scale is scored from 1 (m axim um tm st), 0.5, 0 (DK), -0.5, to -1 (m axim um distm st).Social attitudes relevant for individual m odernity

10. R eligios attitudes R ELIG AT

C ounting index o f the answ ers indicating pro-relig ious attitudes : considers religion as im portant o f very im portant (1 or 2 at V9), consider h im /herself as a religious person (1 at V I 82), belives in G od (V 183) life after death ( v l 8 4 ) , soul (V185), D evil (V186), hell (V 187), heaven (V188), sin (V 189) and finds strength in relig ion (1 at V 191). R ange betw een 0 and 10.

11. Individualistic orientation IN D IV ID

A verage o f three 11 points scales (from -1, -0.80, -0 .6 0 ......0 ...0.80, 1) indicating support for private ow nership vs governm ent ow nership (V126), individual responsibility vs Governm ent responsibility (V 127) and com petition vs non-com petition (V I28).

12. A ttitude favourable to change CH A N G E

A verage o f tw o 11 points scales (from -1, -0.80, -0 .6 0 ......0 ...0.80, 1) indicating that is better to ‘act bo ld ly ’ vs ‘acting cautiously’ (V131) and that ‘new ideas are b e tte r’ vs ‘ideas that have stood the test o f the tim e are generally b e tte r’ (V132).

Three patterns of SC in Europe

The SC profile for the 21 European countries is presented in Annex Table A1 The degree of similarity among the profiles is indicated by a cluster analysis outcome ( Figure 1).

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Cluster analysis and simple location of the countries in a bi-dimensional factor scores space (Figure 2 and Table A2) brings about a clear image of three major patterns of SC: Catholic Europe, North-Western (major protestant one) and former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Taking a closer look to the patterns give a more detailed picture. In fact, there are six clusters of similarity and three highly specific countries (Figure 1). The Catholic Europe is divide between the cluster of Belgium, Austria, Spain and France (Latin population mainly) and the grouping of Portugal and Italy. The Protestant Europe is divided in three subcluster: Irland, Britain and Denmark, West Germany and Switzerland and the grouping of Sweden and Netherlands. Within the former communist countries one can distinguish the pattern of Czeck Republic and Slovakia as differentiated from that of Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland. Romania, East Germany and Norway show rather unique profiles o f SC.

The nine indicators of SC reduce to two basic dimensions (Figure 2, Figura A2): tolerance and association and institutional trust. As expected, tolerance, non-discrimination attitudes, association and interpersonal trust go together. Trust in institutions is a separate second factor.

The best structured profiles are for the Protestant countries and for the former communist countries. The first category is marked by high values of association propensity and by high institutional trust. For the people in these countries, associations and state institutions are important. In the former communist countries association propensity is, as expected after about fifty years of totalitarian experience, at lowest level. Trust in state institutions is a bit above the average. The Catholic Europe is a world of very low institutional trust and medium association propensity.

If the lenses of the scanning are not the two aggregated dimensions but the nine indicators, the picture is more nuanced Annex Table 1. The former communist countries, in spite of their differences in terms of development, religion and ethnic profiles are marked by high intolerance and discrimination attitudes on labour markets. The association propensity given by association membership and friendship orientation is lowest in the set of 21 countries. The unique position of Romania in the group results from the fact that it has a very high level of trust in order institutions (police, legal courts and military), rather low level of generalised trust (together with Poland) and a score of association membership5 that is not so low as for the other countries of the group. Status and behavioural intolerance is maximum in that group for Czech Republic and for Slovakia.

The not so bad association score for Romania could be related to including agricultural associations in the set o f counted forms.

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Rescaled Distance Cluster Combine

0 5 10 15 20 25+ + + 1- i+

Belgium □ □Austria □ □Spain □ □ □ □ □ □France □□ □ □ □ □ □E.Germany □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ D O D D Italy □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □Portugal □□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

CzechRep. □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ pSlovakia □ □ D □ p

Bulgaria □□ P P P P P D p □Hungary □ □ □ □ □ □ C pPoland 0 0 □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ pRomania □ □ □ □ □ □ p

Ireland □ □ □ □ pBritain □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □Denmark □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ pW.Germany □ □ □ □ □ □ pSwitzerland □ □ □ □ □ □ □

□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□on Sweden □ □ □ □ □Netherlands □ □ □Norway □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

F ig u re 1. D e n d ro g ra m o f s im ila rity a m o n g 21 E u ro p ea n so c ie tie s fro m the so c ia l cap ita l p o in t o f v ie w

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association propensity

Figure 2. The three Europes of social capital

Trust, tolerance and association membership have the highest values for three of the North-Western countries - Sweden, Norway and Netherlands.

Predictors of social capital

Catholic, Protestant and former European communist countries have not only different patterns of social capital but also different social and cultural roots. Religion, for example, play a very different role at individual level for social capital in each of the three groups of countries. General trust is favoured by religiosity mainly in Catholic countries. For Protestant and former communist ones it does not count. As far as it concerns the religious affiliation, that aspect

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counts only in Protestant countries. It is here that Catholic are less trustful than other religious categories. Generally, Catholics tend to have lower tolerance than other denominations in Catholic and Protestant countries (Table A 3 Table A 4)

Individual modernity with its favourability to change and individual autonomy goes together with higher levels of general trust in all the three categories of societies. It is especially pro-change orientation that reinforces with tolerance and generalised trust.

Agricultural employment seems to be especially favourable to intolerance in Catholic and Protestant countries.

Manual work of low qualifications is clearly related in a negative way to generalised trust only for the case of Protestant countries.

Generally, the sociodemographic composition of the Western Europe population that is unfavourable to social capital is marked by higher proportions of old and agricultural men. The rule does not play for Central and Eastern former communist Europe.

Conclusions

Religion and ideological experience are significant factors in shaping socio­cultural map of current Europe (Dogan, 1999: 209) and, particularly, the social capital map of the continent. Close to the end of the second millennium, SC in Europe still shows consistent roots in religion and political-ideological experiences. Fifty years of communism and specific historical experience for the Central and Eastern Europe put such a mark on the mentality of the people in that region that religion does not count as much as for the rest of Europe. O r , more exactly, ideological experiences related to religious and non-religious beliefs are essential for the shaping of SC.

The configuration of SC within Europe is to a large degree consistent with the map of that continent from the point of view of modernity and post- modernity values. The Inglehart (1997: 93) clustering of European societies (out of 43 world societies for the years 1990-1993) gives a very similar picture with one that I got for the SC patterns. The same three clusters of Catholic, Northern and former communist countries appear in the two diagrams. The attribute space in Inglehart classification is that of ‘survival- well-being’ and secular-rational — traditional authority’ and is built by transforming a set of 43

variables (Inglehart, 1997:82). The fact that starting from very different data sets one gets similar pictures is relevant for the fact that SC is an essential part of broader culture of societies.

The rich, secular-rational and post-materialist Northern societies of Europe are also confident in institutions and association oriented. Former communist societies that secular-rational and survival values oriented are also

The rich, secular-rational and post-materialist Northern societies of Europe are also confident in institutions and association oriented. Former communist societies that secular-rational and survival values oriented are also marked by low association orientation. In both classifications, Catholic Europe is ‘at the middle’ on all the used dimensions for classification.

The three groupings o f countries are different not only from the point of view of SC structure but also by their predictors o f SC: religion counts more in Western than in former communist countries as predictors o f SC; Catholics tend to be less tolerant than other denominations in Western Europe;attitudes favourable to change are also favourable to high social capital - high tolerance especially - in the majority o f analysed countries;old and agricultural men from the Western countries constitute a segment o f population o f lower SC.

Getting down from country to regional (NUTS l)6 level is a necessary step as to avoid some o f the ecological fallacies associated with aggregating very heterogeneous territorial units.

References

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Paxton, Pamela (2002) Social Capital and Democracy: an Interdependent Relationship , American Sociological Review, vol. 67, April

6 A significant example for using regions (in seven European countries) to analyse social capital data is presented in Van Schiak (2002), laying on EVS data.

89

Portes, Alejandro (1998) Social capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modem Sociology, Annual Review o f Sociology.

Putnam, Robert D. with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti (1993) Making Democracy Wok. Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press

Putnam, Robert (1996) Who killed civic America?, Prospect, March Putnam, Robert (2000) Boling Alone, NY: A Touchstone Book published by

Simon and Schuster Sandu, Dumitru. (1999) Transition Social Space. Iasi: Polirom (in Romanian) Sandu, Dumitru. (2003) Sociability in the Development Space. Trust, Tolerance

and Social Networks. Iasi: Polirom Van Schaik, Ton (2002) Social Capital in European Values Surveys, Country

paper prepared for OECD- ONS International Conference on Social Capital Measurement, London, September 25-27

90

Annex

Belgium*A ustria *Spain

G eneraltrust

- 0,22-0,32-0,42

‘Friendsare

im portant'

Table A 1. Social capital profile o f 21 European countries

0,27-0,560,06

N on-discrim inat.

attitudes-0,17-0,53-0,33

A ssociationm em bership

-0,16-0,330,47

B ehavioralintolerance

- 0,66- 0,02-0,71

Status intolera

0,49-0,26-0,70

Trustin

parliam ent

0,090,19-0,53

Trust in order instit.

-1,09-0,55-0,69

Trust in Civil service

- 0,220,10-0,25

E.GermanyI ta ly 1P o rtu g a l 'C zech Rep.Slovakia ’BulgariaHungaryPolandRom aniaIreland *BritainD enm ark*W. G erm any

SwitzerlandSwedenN etherland *N orw ay

-0,19-0,77

0,140,17 -0,04

-0,27

-0,07 0,13-1,06 - 1,11

-0,510,76

-1,08

- 0,68-0,43-0,95

-1,07

-0,37-0,47

-0,60-0,37 0,40-0,65

0,12-2,28

-0,360,59

-1,28_ J ,4 0 _

-1,60-0,29-0,84

-0,19 -0,89-1,72

-1,19-0,32-1,31

-1,17 -1,65 -0,180,790,521,520,41

0,381,631,392,06

0,86 0,110,48 0,610,78 1,430,60 0,831,04 - 0,021,69 2,271,30 1,391,24 1,20

_ -l,2 6 _-1,26- 0,86

1,321,760,50

-0,74 1,55-1,18 1,51-0,19 1,38-0,33 - 0,21-0,65 -0,30-0,30 - 1,661,73 -0,991,961,59

-0,85- 0,66

0,19 -0,541,66 -0,45

-0,252,062,580,530,470,751,40-0,90

-0,45

-0,56-1,13

-0,42-0,87-0,90

zh'l_A 84_0,68-0,630,30-0,24-0,51-0,821,120,660,26-0,870,170,460,92

-0,27-1,05

0,37

_ A , 2 2 -0,84

- 0,12Ai54-J ,28

- 1,10_ -l,4 2

-1,13-1,45

0,48 0,53-0,130,63

0,68-0,73

2,21 0,150,48 2,040,791,00-0,03

0,21

0,58

-0,450,09

2,60 1,93

0,401,120,520,140,340,410,91

Data source : Wold Value Survey. Ţhcm ajonty o f the data are from the third survey, 1995-1997. The countries marked by * are considered by second wave data as did not have access to appropriate data from the third wave. All the figures are z scores for the variables defined in table A l. Bold line indicate maximum on

column and shadowed cell are for the minimum values. The Romanian data set was produced by Quality o f Life Research Institute and University o f Bucharest (Dumitru Sandu ) in 1997. All the data , excepting the Romanian ones are weighted with the variable provided by WVS

91

Table A 2. Principal components explaining the variation of social capital indicators

Social capital indicators

Factor loadings

CommunalitiesI.

Toleranceand

association

II.Institutiona

1 trust

Intolerance o f deviant behaviors BEHINTOLER

-0,912 -0,082 0.839

Intolerance of ethnic and imigrant groups STAINTOLER

-0,885 -0,083

Frienship orientation FRIENDS

0,873 0,319 0.864

Membership in associations ASSOCIAT

0,800 0,120 0.655

Non-discriminatory behaviors on labor markets NONDISCRIM

0,781 0,477 0.837

General trust TGENERAL 0,665 0,605 0.808Truat in Parliament TPARL 0,095 0,833 0.703Trust in order institutions (army, police, judicial courts) TORDER

0,062 0,832 0.696

Trust in Civil service TCIVIL 0,330 0,733 0.646Variation explained by factors (%)

46.5 29.4

Factor analysis with KMO index=0.80. N=21 European societies described by mean values for the nine indicators. Extraction by PCA and rotation by VARIMAX. Under ML extraction method the configuration of factors is similar and one gets an adequate goodness o f f i t , chi-square of 19.73 and p=0.41 for 19 degrees o f freedom. Romanian data set is not from WVSs but produced , with a similar questionnaire, by University of Bucharest and Quality of Life Research Institute in 1997.

92

Table A 3. Predictors of social capital variables for North-Westerncountries

Predictors D ependent variable in the regression modelG eneralised

trustIntolerance to deviant

behaviours

Intolerance to m arginal

status groups

T rust in order

institutions

(Constant) 0,36 2,02 ** 0,25 ** 0,11 **Man (1 yes, 0 no) -0,03 0,15 ** 0,09 ** 0,00Age 0,00 0,01 ** 0,01 ** 0,00A griculture em ploym ent (1 yes, 0 no) -0,07 0,28 * 0,10 * -0,02U nskilled o r sem iskilled w orker (1 yes, 0 no) -0,14 ** -0,19 * 0,00 -0,01Catholic (1 yes, 0 no) -0,11 He* 0,16 ** -0,05 0,05 **Protestant (1 yes, 0 no) -0,02 0,24 ** 0,06 ** 0,08 **Size o f town -0,01 0,02 * 0,00 0,00Religious orientation 0,00 0,02 ** 0,00 0,01 **Individualistic orientation 0,04 0,31 ** 0,05 ** -0,01Pro-change orientation 0,08 ** -0,23 ** -0,12 ** -0,02 *Britain [ 1 yes, 0 no) -0,41 ** 0,17 ** 0,01 -0,13 **Netherland (1 yes, 0 no) -0,18 ** 0,07 -0,05 -0,20 **D enm ark (1 yes, 0 no) -0,15 -1,04 ** -0,04 -0,11 **Ireland (1 yes, 0 no) -0,25 ** 0,10 -0,07 -0,21 **Swedan (1 yes, 0 no) -0,12 ** -0,22 ** -0,12 ** -0,17 **Switherland (1 yes, 0 no) -0,43 ** -0,46 ** 0,01 -0,23 **G erm any (1 yes, 0 no) -0,44 ** -0,42 ** -0,14 ** -0,25 **R2 0.04 0.04 0.03 0.06

significant for p 0.05; ** significant for p—0.01. Reference country in the group Netherland

93

Table A 4. Predictors o f social capital variables for Catholic countries

Predictors D ependent variable in the regression m odelGeneralisedtrust

Intolerance to deviant behaviours

Intolerancetom arginalstatusgroups

Trust in orderinstitutions

(C onstant) -0,54 ** 2,13 ** 0,27 ** -0,20 **M a n ( l yes, O no) 0,04 0,05 0,06 ** 0,01Age -0.01 * 0,00 ** 0,00 ** 0,00Agriculture em ploym ent (1 yes, 0 no) -0,12 ** 0,48 ** 0,28 ** 0,03Unskilled o r sem iskilled w orker (1 yes, O no) -0,08 0,01 0,06 0,06 **Catholic (1 yes, 0 no) 0,01 0,22 ** 0,07 ** 0,06 **Protestant (1 yes, 0 no) -0,02 0,01 0,00 -0,05Size o f town 0,01 * 0,02 ** -0,01 -0,01 **R eligious orientation 0,01 * 0,03 ** 0,00 0,02 **Individualistic orientation 0,09 ** 0,06 -0,03 -0,06 **Pro-change orientation 0,07 ** -0,42 ** -0,10 ** -0,05 **France (1 yes, 0 no) -0,08 * -0,67 ** 0,04 0,04 *Italy (1 yes, Ono) 0,18 ** 0,26 ** 0,02 -0,15 **Belgium (1 yes, 0 no) 0,14 * -0,33 * 0,29 ** -0,08 **Spain (1 yes, 0 no) 0,08 -0,46 ** -0,09 * -0,09 **Portugal (1 yes, 0 no) -0,09 0,76 ** 0,05 -0,09 **A u s tr ia (1 yes, Ono) 0,06 0,20 * 0,05 -0,026R 2 0.02 0.08 0.02 0.06

* significant for p—0.05; ** significant for p—0.01. Reference country in the group East Germany

94

Table A 5. Predictors o f social capital variables for former communistcountries

Predictors D ependent vatGeneralisedtrust

iable in the reg Intolerance to deviant behaviours

ression m odel Intolerance to m arginal status grouns

Trust in orderinstitutions

(Constant) -0,78 ** 4,89 ** 1,12 ** 0,07 **M an (1 yes, 0 no) 0,00 -0,15 ** 0,02 -0,01Age 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 *A griculture em ploym ent (1 yes, 0 no) 0,05 -0,07 0,07 0,01Unskilled o r sem iskilled worker (1 yes, 0 no) -0,01 0,09 0,11 * -0,01Catholic (1 yes, 0 no) -0,05 0,19 0,11 0,03Protestant (1 yes, 0 no) -0,03 -0,05 0,11 0,02Size o f town 0,01 -0,02 -0,02 ** -0,02 **Religious orientation 0,00 0,02 * 0,00 0,02 **Individualistic orientation 0,13

n os** -0,47 ** -0,32 ** -0,07 **

Hungaryv/,Vy0,24 **

-U,ZJ-0,52 **

-0,06-0,41 **

-0,02-0,09

Poland 0,16 ** -0,69 ** -0,43 ** -0,012Czech Republic Bulgaria

0,30 0 36

****

-0,50 ** 0,16 * -0,159 * *

SlovakiaR 2

0,220.02

**1 , r j

-0,400.07

*-0,39110,13486

0.06

-0,016-0,257

0.09

**

* significant forp 0.05; ** significant forp-0.01. Reference country in the group Romania (data set fromWVSs, 1993

95