Predicting Cross-National Levels of Social Trust: Global Pattern or Nordic Exceptionalism?

Gracious space: Library programming strategies towards immigrants as tools in the creation of social capital

“…Both perspectives are ridden with the problem of specifying the direction of causality (Delhey & Newton, 2005). Is it voluntary associations or institutions that create social capital, or is it even the other way around?…”

“…The study of contact with others and contact intervention among ethnic minorities is therefore perhaps one fruitful way to find out more about what creates trust, and how trust is created. Most research on race and ethnicity in relation to social capital tells a depressing story of low and declining trust within these groups (Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000, 2002Coffe & Geys, 2006;Costa & Kahn, 2003;Delhey & Newton, 2005). Also, interaction between different racial and ethnic groups does not seem to have significant effects on generalized trust.…”

“…In recent research on the generation of social capital, public institutions are granted salient roles as instruments for creating social capital (Delhey & Newton, 2005;Vårheim, Steinmo, & Ide, 2008). Less is known about the specific institutions and actual mechanisms creating social capital.…”

Association Membership and Generalized Trust: Are Connections between Associations Losing their Value?

“…Polity IV democracy score) is included to evaluate the idea that democracies are likely to enhance trust (see also Levi, 1988). Second, the relation between ethnic and religious diversity, on the one hand, and social capital, civic engagement and trust, on the other hand, has attracted significant scholarly discussion in recent years (e.g., Alesina & La Ferrara, 2000, 2002Delhey & Newton, 2005;Hallberg & Lund, 2005;Coffé & Geys, 2006;Putnam, 2007;Gijsberts, van der Meer & Dagevos, 2012). We therefore control for ethnic-cultural diversity's potential role as an impediment to trust by including a measure of ethnic and religious fractionalization (ETHNIC and RELIG; Herfindahl indices taken from Alesina et al, 2003).…”

“…The importance of this debate lies not only in establishing whether Western societies have become more individualistic over time and its citizens increasingly 'hunker down' (to borrow the colloquialism introduced in this respect by Putnam, 2007), but also reflects the central role often attributed to civic engagement for the development and maintenance of democratic values, generalized trust, cooperative norms, racial and religious tolerance, and so on (e.g., Putnam, 2000;Delhey & Newton, 2005;Li, Pickles & Savage, 2005;Terriquez, 2012). When civic engagement is intimately associated with a wide range of social values, its decline can be feared to provoke a concomitant decline throughout society in inter-personal trust, tolerance, cooperation and so on (Putnam, 2000).…”