Social Capital in Developing Democracies
Nicaragua and Argentina Compared

Explores the contribution of social capital to the process of democratization and the limits of that contribution.

Leslie E. Anderson (Author)

9780521192743, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 March 2010

344 pages, 27 b/w illus. 8 tables
24.3 x 0.2 x 2 cm, 0.58 kg

“Anderson examines political attitudes and political behavior in Nicaragua and Argentina from the 1990s through 2007 via archival research, interviews, and public opinion surveys. Anderson’s empirical analyses mix municipal surveys in Bello Horizonts, Nicaragua, and La Matanza, Argentina, with national surveys conducted as part of the Latinobarometer series. Recommended.”
– C.H. Blake, James Madison University, Choice

Drawing on extensive field work in Nicaragua and Argentina, as well as public opinion and elite data, Leslie E. Anderson's Social Capital in Developing Democracies explores the contribution of social capital to the process of democratization and the limits of that contribution. Anderson finds that in Nicaragua, strong, positive, bridging social capital has enhanced democratization while in Argentina the legacy of Peronism has created bonding and non-democratic social capital that perpetually undermines the development of democracy. Faced with the reality of an anti-democratic form of social capital, Anderson suggests that Argentine democracy is developing on the basis of an alternative resource – institutional capital. Anderson concludes that social capital can and does enhance democracy under historical conditions that have created horizontal ties among citizens, but that social capital can also undermine democratization where historical conditions have created vertical ties with leaders and suspicion or non-cooperation among citizens.

1. Introduction
Part I. Creating Social Capital: People I Have Known: The Human Face of Popular Politics: 2. Creating 'we': Sandinismo and bridging social capital
3. Creating 'us' and 'them': Peronism and bonding social capital
Part II. An Empirical Examination of the Argument: 4. A tale of two neighborhoods: social capital in Nicaragua and Argentina
5. Political capital in Nicaragua and Argentina: political activism and political values
6. Political capital in Nicaragua and Argentina: democratic institutions and procedures
Part III. Making Democracy Work Without Social Capital: Institutional Capital: 7. If you build it they will come
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]