The Individual-level Implications of Social Capital for Democracy in East Asia

This paper attempts to explore the implications of social capital in East Asia for the citizens' attitudes toward political engagement and the quality of governance using the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey. Using multilevel analysis, it attempts to disentangle individual level and co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of international and area studies 2017, 24(1), , pp.61-84
Main Author: Yoon, Kwang-Il
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civics
Confucianism
Democracy
East Asian culture
Individualism
Modeling
Multilevel models
Social capital
Social democracy
Statistical significance
정치외교학
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Summary:This paper attempts to explore the implications of social capital in East Asia for the citizens' attitudes toward political engagement and the quality of governance using the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey. Using multilevel analysis, it attempts to disentangle individual level and country level factors in explaining generalized trust and other political involvement variables. In doing so, it aims to enrich the theory of social capital based on the experience and evidence from East Asia. The analysis finds that formal membership tends to decrease generalized trust, which independently increases political involvement. It also finds that Confucianism at the country level tends to dampen political engagement. It suggests that most formal group in this region might be characterized as bonding and the citizens in Confucian culture might still be characterized as allegiant rather than assertive citizens.
ISSN:1226-8550
2765-1800
DOI:10.23071/jias.2017.24.1.61