Atlante del capitale sociale

Abstract

The article aims at mapping the stock of social capital in the 103 Italian provinces. It could be considered a replication and an update of Putnam’s Making Democracy Work. The paper proposes a careful consideration on the concept of social capital considered as a collective good and argues the limits of the sociological metaphor of network, which often misses the double distinction between abscriptive/elective and formal/informal networks. The focus is on the consequences of the deficit of social capital in terms of quality of democracy and economic development. To build the index of the stock of the social capital, the authors use data on electoral turn out (1993-2004), newspapers circulation (2001-2002), blood giving (2002), voluntary associations (2002), and sports clubs (1999-2001). Empirical findings stress a deep cleavage between Northern provinces and Southern ones, accordingly to Putnam’s remarks. Moreover data show that the gap between North and South in terms of social capital stock is as deep as the gap in term of average individual income.