Social Capital as a Factor of Social Participation: The Case of the Vologda Region

Abstract

The most important resource for the development of a territory that provides dynamism and ensures adaptation to changes is a society’s energy for activity. The activity resource of a city, region or settlement, in our opinion, can be measured by the development of practices of social participation among its population. The main types of social participation are involvement in formal public organizations, informal participation, which consists of collective practices of participation without membership in organizations, and practicing helpful behavior, which may be purely personal in nature. The level of social participation is influenced by external and internal factors. External are a region’s socio-economic characteristics, activity of organizations and authorities aimed at stimulating and involving the population in the practice of participation. Internal factors include motivation to participate, attitudes and values that influence the population. The basic hypothesis of the study is that the fundamental motive for social participation is the creation of a network of social ties, the expansion of contacts, which contributes to the accrual of social capital. At the same time, different forms of social participation have different potential for accrual of social capital. Paradoxically, it is most actively formed within the framework of informal participation practices. To prove this trend, the categories of social capital and social resources that are well-known and widely used in theoretical and practical research activities are used. The empirical basis of the study was a representative survey of the population of Vologda Oblast. It was revealed that the most important reasons for involvement in the activities of public organizations and involvement in informal participation, according to most active segments of the population, include “communication with interesting people”, “useful connections”, “making new friends”. Social participation acts as a mechanism for the formation of personal social capital. A side effect of this is the formation of group social capital and the social capital of the territorial community as a whole. This happens due to the expansion of networks and an increase in solidarity, responsibility and willingness to unite, which, in turn, stimulates participation, which becomes an important social effect for the development of the territory. The practical significance of the study is to identify the core of motivation of active segments of the population, which is a guideline for building a policy of involving more inert groups of the population in the practice of social participation.