This Working paper concentrated on civil society in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro and FYROM. The IBEU team explored the concept of social capital in order to understand the dividing lines that exist within these societies and the factors that determine these dividing lines. Social capital was studied in terms of trust among population groups within each country and towards the state institutions. The survey that was conducted through the IBEU in these countries shed light on the factors that influence positive and negative social capital. In addition, workshop meetings were held in Sofia and in Bucharest to derive comparative conclusions from the analysis of each country’s data and to further develop the concept of particularism with respect to Southeast Europe.
Final Papers
The final papers for WP2 that were presented at our Final Conference in Brussels on 18th November 2004 can be downloaded below.
- Conceptual paper: Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos, “Social Capital: Conceptual, Empirical and Policy Related Aspects”
- Deconstructing Balkan Particularism: Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, “Deconstructing Balkan Particularism: The Ambiguous Social Capital of Southeastern Europe”
- Country analyses: Georgy Ganev, Yana Papazova, and Rashko Dorosiev, “Social Capital in the Balkans: Are Socio-Demographic Factors Important? Can Policy Assumptions be Supported?”
- EU Strategies: Dimitar Bechev and Svetozlar Andreev, “Top-Down Versus Bottom-Up Aspects of the EU Institution Building Strategies in the Western Balkans”.