Social Network, Trust, and Political Capital Formation in Taiwan.

The theory of social capital suggests that high level of associational involvement among the citizens contributes to a civil society and stable democracy. According to Putnam, accumulation of social capital through social voluntarism and activism is key to promoting civic participation in a democracy (Putnam 1995, 2000). Recent research however identifies anomalies to the social capital theory among new democracies in Central America, Eastern Europe and Asia (Booth and Richard, 1998; Mishler and Rose 2001; Kim 2005, Ho and Tan 2006). In particular, Taiwan presents a special case in testing the theory. While associational life and civil engagement are generally low among the citizens, the young democracy demonstrates higher level of voting turnout, particularly during presidential elections. In this study, we examine the role of social capital in the Taiwan society with a special attention to its contribution to formation of political capital. By incorporating another social capital component of trust, we investigate the full impact of social capital within a framework of "political capital" and demonstrate that social capital could be a mixed blessing to newly democratized societies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]