Social capital: Limitations of the concept and participation in public life in Poland

Abstract

The article examines some of the most common and crucial difficulties involved in the use of the concept of “social capital” for research purposes. Some of the limitations of the concept are subsequently exemplified in the ways in which it has been employed to explain the unwillingness of a large part of the Polish society to participate in the public life. Social scientists have often accounted for this by emphasizing the low level of social capital in Poland, i.e. absence of certain skills necessary for active engagement in public life and/or lack of trust (trust in public institutions as well as towards other people in general). The article argues that such explanations are either obscuring important factors which contributed to this state of affairs or might gloss over the resources of social capital which are present in the Polish society.