SOCIETY
Social capital and its association with good local governance in Republic of North Macedonia
- 1 Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Faculty of Economics, Skopje, N. Macedonia
Abstract
Numerous studies show that high levels of social capital are associated with higher level of good governance in societies around the world. However, because of different definitions and approaches for measurement of social capital, a lot of papers have included only one variable of measure or not in-depth measurement of social capital. Also, there is a huge deficiency of research for social capital and its relation with good governance in North Macedonia. Therefore, it is very important to make national analysis, also because of the cultural differences between the countries that can produce different conclusions. Also, it is not known which indicators of the broad concept of social capital are associated with good governance.
Social capital is a complex multidimensional concept without unified definition. One easy way to explain the social capital is through benefits that arise from social activity of one individual, or social capital is related to the types and the quality of human networks. Among many distinctions of social capital are distinctions of structural, relational and cognitive social capital and distinction based on relationships such as strong, weak, vertical, horizontal, bonding, bridging or linking. In this paper, we will take the distinction of structural and cognitive social capital on individual level. This paper will examine the association between different types of individual structural social capital and individual cognitive social capital with level of perceived effectiveness of good local governance variables on municipalities level. Thus, paper hypothesis is: structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital are positively associated with good local governance. Data will be gathered through a questionnaire that will be delivered online (e-mail, social platforms, etc.) to residents of minimum 20% of the municipalities in Republic of North Macedonia. Analysis of the data will be through Ordinary Least Square regression to model good governance measures as a function of different proxies of structural and cognitive social capital, and controlling variables.
The goal of the paper will be to show the association of good local governance and different dimensions of individual social capital.
Keywords
References
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