Involvement and Trust in Voluntary Associations, Social Trust, Social Capital and Happiness in Eastern European Countries: A Longitudinal Comparative Study (Presentation Slides)

Abstract

As worries about the decline of participation and community life grow in Western Europe, scholars acknowledge that changes in the participation of the Eastern European citizens are not increasing as expected, or at least not at a pace that would trigger a significant change in social capital. Many scholars show a disappointment in this regards, as they proved the many benefits that social capital would brings for the post-communist countries. This paper tries a comparative longitudinal approach to this problem. It uses four waves of World Values/European Values Survey (1981-2004) to measure changes in involvement in voluntary associations in 16 Eastern European countries. Similar to what Decker & van den Broek (1994) proved for a dozen Western nations, the results concerning participation are mixed: for some domains and countries they show a growth, but in other cases a stagnation and even lowering. At both individual and country level, involvement is associated with high social trust and trust in voluntary sector. An interesting result is that involvement in voluntary association is also linked with happiness of the individuals in studied countries, although the causal link is not clear: happier people are more willing to involve or simply participation causes happiness to grow? Finally, the limitation of the approach is discussed, and conclusions on the new developments in social capital in Eastern Europe are drawn.