Premium
Introduction: Social Capital in Scandinavia
Author(s) -
Rothstein Bo,
Stolle Dietlind
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
scandinavian political studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1467-9477
pISSN - 0080-6757
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9477.t01-1-00077
Subject(s) - social capital , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , individual capital , social mobility , social reproduction , welfare state , social status , political science , political economy , positive economics , capital (architecture) , social position , economic capital , sociology , politics , development economics , social change , economic growth , economics , social science , human capital , law , geography , archaeology
In this special issue of Scandinavian Political Studies it is explored how the concept of social capital relates to the Scandinavian context. It is common knowledge that Scandinavia performs well with regard to many aspects of social capital, such as the level of trust and the density of membership in voluntary associations. Contrary to developments in the United States, there is little evidence of a decline in social capital in Scandinavia. There are thus several reasons why Scandinavia offers an especially interesting testing ground for many of the hypotheses and problems generated by social capital theory. What kind of empirical evidence do we have for the changes of social capital in Scandinavia? If high levels of social capital are indeed an important attribute of Scandinavian society, how can such high levels be maintained? What is the relation between, on the one hand, social capital in the form of norms about reciprocity and, on the other hand, the Social Democratic type of encompassing and universal welfare state? Is there something special about the types of mechanisms that are behind the abundance and maintenance of social capital in Scandinavia? It is argued that the high level of social capital in the Scandinavian countries can be explained by (a) the high degree of economic equality, (b) the low level of patronage and corruption and (c) the predominance of universal non‐discriminating welfare programmes.