Social Capital

11 Pages 2727 Words

Introduction
Social capital has commonly been studied in recent years from the perspective
of sociology and political science. Through the various different works of Robert Putnam, Francis Fukuyama, and James Coleman, as well as others, the complexity of social capital has been broken down to people’s relationships and the values which they hold with each other. Social capital has been regarded as a useful element in democratic governance (Putnam) and economic stability in countries (Fukuyama). Trust has become a main element in the development of social capital. Civic engagement, social networking, and participation in public organizations help boost social capital, but these trends are on the decline in America.
Many theorists believe this is the reason for our lack of trust in the government. If the people do not place trust in each other, than how can they trust the people which they elect into office. This is the very concept in which I developed my hypothesis: In comparing individuals, people who place more trust in others are more likely to trust their government than are people who place less trust in each other. The independent variable for this experiment will be the level of trust placed in others by people and the dependent variable will be the trust placed in the government by the people. The relationship between the two variables should have a positive correlation if the hypothesis is correct. There have been many studies conducted by both sociologists and political scientists concerning these two variables and its effects on social capital.

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Academic Sources
“Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”
Robert D. Putnam
Robert Putnam addresses a few political science subfields in this article which can be found in the January 1995 issue of the Journal of Democracy. Public policy and American politics are the key subfields in which Putnam ventures in to. He examines the policies...