مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL CAPITAL AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE CONTEXT OF DEMOCRACY

Abstract :

Civil society is one of the most important sources of social capital. Power and effectiveness of social capital in a society cannot be considered to be independent of the strength and effectiveness of civil society in that very society. However, it is not possible to say that this interaction turns out to be strictly democratic. The purpose of this work is to determine the relationship between social capital and civil society in the context of democracy. Civil society, which is one of the sources of social capital, does not contribute directly to democracy since it can occur in all political systems of modern civilized society. Civil society and hence social capital in democratic systems appear to support democratic values. However, civil society in authoritarian regimes may be supportive of the antidemocratic activities rather than contributing to democracy due to the influence and the oppressive attitudes of this kind of political regimes. Thus it is profoundly clear that civil society of this kind mainly does not have a contribution to social capital in terms of democracy. At the theoretical level, this work attempts to analytically interpret the democratic dimension of the relationship between civil society and social capital by using secondary sources. This work is considered to contribute to the literature for it highlights the strong link amidst democracy and social capital and civil society that significantly interacts with each other.