Social Capital in Developing Democracies

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

Leslie E. Anderson is a University of Florida Research Foundation Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. She is a scholar of democracy, popular politics and protest, and democratic development. Professor Anderson is also the author of The Political Ecology of the Modern Peasant: Calculation and Community and Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990-2001 (with Lawrence C. Dodd), in addition to multiple journal articles.

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.