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Researching social capital in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Jennifer Widner  and
Alexander Mundt
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Extract

Scholars in several disciplines have recently turned their attention to the effects of community characteristics on attitudes and behaviour. ‘Social capital’ figures prominently in this new literature. This article explores the influence of trust, optimism, voluntarism and other standard components of social capital on political participation and institutional performance in two African contexts: Uganda and Botswana. It concludes that generalised trust and participation in social clubs help shape decisions to participate in formal politics, although their influence is dwarfed by gender and urbanisation. However, social capital bears no clear relation to institutional performance, as measured by residents' levels of satisfaction with government services.

Résumé

Des spécialistes de disciplines diverses se sont récemment intéressés aux effets des caractéristiques communautaires sur les attitudes et le comportement. Le “capital social” occupe une place importante dans cette nouvelle étude. Cet article examine l'influence de la confiance, de l'optimisme, du volontarisme et d'autres composantes traditionnelles du capital social sur la participation politique et sur le fonctionnement des institutions dans deux contextes africains: l'Ouganda et le Botswana. Il conclut que la confiance généralisée dans les clubs sociaux et leur fréquentation contribuent à influencer la décision de prendre part à la politique officielle, bien que leur influence soit éclipsée par la distinction de sexe et l'urbanisation.

Toutefois, le lien entre capital social et fonctionnement des institutions n'est pas clair, comme le montre le niveau de satisfaction de la population locale à l'égard des services gouvernementaux.

Type
Social capital: the fieldwork problem
Information
Africa , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1998

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