The Politics of Subjective Well-Being: How Social Capital Operates in Different Regime Types

Abstract

To what extent does regime type condition the association between social capital and subjective well-being (SWB)? While social capital is widely recognized as a correlate of SWB, little is known about how this association varies across political contexts. Using data from the World Values Survey and Our World in Data, we analyze 262,945 observations from 95 countries to examine how three dimensions of social capital—in-group trust, out-group trust, and informal social networks—are associated with life satisfaction, happiness, and financial satisfaction. In-group trust and informal social networks are positively associated with all three SWB dimensions across political regimes. More importantly, the results reveal that regime type consistently moderates the association between out-group trust and all three SWB outcomes, with the relationship between out-group trust and well-being being more favorable in democratic contexts. By contrast, the associations of in-group trust and informal social networks with well-being are largely regime-invariant, suggesting that the well-being benefits of close social ties operate independently of political regime type. These findings highlight the nuanced role of political context in shaping the social capital–SWB relationship, with regime type mattering most for how out-group trust translates into well-being.

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