Ethnic Diversity and Social Capital in Europe: Tests of Putnam's Thesis in European Countries
Ethnic Diversity and Social Capital in Europe: Tests of Putnam's Thesis in European Countries
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1467-9477.2008.00217.x
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发表时间：
2009-06-01
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
Scheepers, Peer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Gesthuizen, Maurice;van der Meer, Tom;Scheepers, Peer
本文重点探讨了普特南最近提出的关于民族多样性与社会资本维度关系的核心理论。这些假说是从这一理论衍生出来的，但也来自其他理论，这些理论提出了关于国家特征和社会资本维度之间关系的相互竞争的假说。从本质上讲，作者提出了更严格的实证检验普特南的假设，包括这些相互竞争的假设：这些假设的测试提供了可能性，以评估普特南和这些其他理论的一般（即跨国）的可持续性为欧洲大陆。一般的问题是：在欧洲国家，民族多样性等国家层面的特征在多大程度上影响了公民个人的社会资本维度？作者通过对来自28个欧洲国家的跨国数据进行假设测试来回答这个问题。这些数据包含了对社会资本若干维度的有效测量。个人层面的数据丰富的上下文（即国家）一级的特点，包括在更先进的多层次分析。主要的发现是，普特南的种族多样性的假设必须在欧洲社会中被驳斥。相反，它被发现，经济不平等和国家的历史，在欧洲社会的持续民主，是更重要的解释在欧洲的社会资本的跨国差异。
This article focuses on the core theory recently proposed by Putnam on the relationship between ethnic diversity and dimensions of social capital. Hypotheses are derived from this theory, but also from other theories that propose competing hypotheses on relationships between national characteristics and dimensions of social capital. Essentially, the authors propose more rigorous empirical tests of Putnam's hypotheses by including these competing hypotheses: tests of these hypotheses provide possibilities to evaluate Putnam's and these other theories in terms of general (i.e. cross-national) tenability for the European continent. The general question is: To what extent do national-level characteristics like ethnic diversity, next to other national characteristics, actually affect dimensions of social capital of individual citizens in European countries? The authors set out to answer this question by testing hypotheses on cross-national data from 28 European countries. These data contain valid measurements of a number of dimensions of social capital. The individual-level data are enriched with contextual- (i.e. national-) level characteristics to be included in more advanced multilevel analyses. The main finding is that Putnam's hypothesis on ethnic diversity must be refuted in European societies. Instead, it is found that economic inequality and the national history of continuous democracy in European societies turn out to be more important for explaining cross-national differences in social capital in Europe.