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Association membership and generalised trust: Are connections between associations losing their value?

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  • Geys, Benny

Abstract

Research linking civic engagement to citizens' democratic values, generalized trust, cooperative norms, and so on often implicitly assumes such connections are stable over time. This article argues that, due to changes in the broader institutional environment, the engagement-values relation is likely to generally lack temporal stability. We investigate this empirically by analysing the engagement-trust relation using World Values Survey (WVS) data from the 1990 and 2000 waves. Overall, our results show that voluntary association memberships remain positively associated with generalised trust in both samples, but evidence that memberships in connected associations are better than in isolated ones appears, at best, scant in more recent years.

Suggested Citation

  • Geys, Benny, 2012. "Association membership and generalised trust: Are connections between associations losing their value?," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship & Project "The Future of Fiscal Federalism" SP II 2012-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbfff:spii2012101
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Delhey, Jan & Newton, Kenneth, 2004. "Social trust: Global pattern or nordic exceptionalism?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2004-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Hilde Coffé & Benny Geys, 2006. "Community Heterogeneity: A Burden for the Creation of Social Capital?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1053-1072, December.
    3. Alesina, Alberto & La Ferrara, Eliana, 2002. "Who trusts others?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 207-234, August.
    4. James Moody & Douglas R. White, 2000. "Structural Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Conception of Social Groups," Working Papers 00-08-049, Santa Fe Institute.
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    Cited by:

    1. Anna Almakaeva & Eduard Ponarin & Christian Welzel, 2014. "Human Development And Generalized Trust: Multilevel Evidence," HSE Working papers WP BRP 58/SOC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    2. Thi Huyen Trang Le & Nina Kolleck, 2022. "‘You Know Them All’—Trust, Cooperation, and Cultural Volunteering in Rural Areas in Germany," Societies, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Anna Almakaeva & Christian Welzel & Eduard Ponarin, 2018. "Human Empowerment and Trust in Strangers: The Multilevel Evidence," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 923-962, October.

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    Keywords

    voluntary associations; generalised trust; world values studies; social networks; longitudinal analysis;
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