▪ Abstract This review evaluates the most recent studies of social capital in political science
and argues that they have strayed considerably from the original treatment of social capital …

Social capital has not merely risen as a social scientific term in the scholarly literature; it has
become routinized into everyday conversation and policy discourse across an …

This article sets the stage for the discussion of social capital, civil society, and contemporary
democracy by attempting to clarify terms and set out the most promising avenues for …

Have the citizens of Western democracies lost their trust in each other? If so, what are the
sources of this unfortunate development and what are the consequences? Why can citizens …

1 We do not mean this as a “functional” definition whereby social capital exists only if it
produces a positive outcome. Durlauf (2002) points out that some definitions of social capital …

The last decade has seen an explosion of literature on, or employing the concept of, social
capital in a wide range of academic disciplines, including politics, social policy, economics …

Some concepts slide gently into the consciousness of social researchers, or gradually
emerge over decades as the natural successors of earlier thinking. Usually there will be a …

In an effort at theoretical clarification, the authors reviewed 45 recent articles reporting
empirical research employing the concept of 'social capital'. The literature is roughly equally …

Few social scientific concepts have gathered so much attention and so many followers in
such a short period of time than the concept of social capital. The fundamental idea can be …

The concept of social capital has already generated a wide range of stimulating debates in a
burgeoning literature that spans the full range of the social and medical sciences. 2 In the …