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Social Capital and Political Participation in Latin America: Evidence from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Joseph L. Klesner
Joseph L. Klesner*
Affiliation:
Kenyon College
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Abstract

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Scholars have argued that social capital—understood to mean those social networks, norms, and trust that allow citizens to act together more successfully to pursue shared goals—encourages political participation and a more robust democratic experience. Consequently, international development agencies have made promotion of social capital a major emphasis in recent years. Using data from the 1999–2001 wave of the World Values Survey, I show that in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru this relationship holds true. Greater involvement in nonpolitical organizations does lead to more participation in explicitly political activities. Higher levels of interpersonal trust also promote political participation. However, despite encouraging results from studies of popular participation in the region, Latin American levels of organizational involvement and political participation are moderate by the standards of more mature democracies, and levels of trust are relatively low.

Resumo

Resumo

Ciertos académicos han mantenido que el capital social, entendido como las redes sociales, normas y confianza interpersonal que permiten a los ciudadanos actuar en conjunto exitosamente para lograr objetivos comunes, fomenta la participación política y alimenta la experiencia democrática. Consecuentemente, en años recientes, las agencias de desarrollo internacional han enfatizado la promoción del capital social. Utilizando datos de la Encuesta de Valores Mundiales del 2000, muestro que en Argentina, Chile, México y Perú esta relación entre capital social, participación política y desarrollo democrático es cierta. Un involucramiento mayor en organizaciones no políticas genera más participación en actividades explícitamente políticas. Una mayor confianza interpersonal también promueve la participación política. Sin embargo, y a pesar de estudios esperanzados sobre la participación popular en la región, los niveles de participación organizacional y política latinoamericanos son moderados respecto a los estándares de democracias más maduras, y los niveles de confianza son relativamente bajos.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 1 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 28-September 1, 2002 and the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Las Vegas, October 7–9, 2004. I thank the commentators on those panels, Mitch Seligson and Lisa Baldez, as well as Peter Ward and five anonymous reviewers from LARR for their comments. I remain responsible for the errors and omissions in this work.

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