Formation and Transformation of Social Capital in Modern Russia

The master thesis attempts to analyze the current state of social capital in modern Russia. The relevance of the study is that high social capital is a necessary condition for the formation and development of civil society. At the same time, despite the high generalized trust data, processes of accumulation of social capital is practically not observed. In this master thesis the two key group of approaches of the study of this phenomenon has been revealed. The first group consider that a major factor refers to interpersonal trust, the second group — the institutional characteristics of the executive branch. Within this work, preference was given to the second approach, applicability of which has been analyzed too. The problem of the study lay in the fact that at sufficiently high rates of generalized social trust, the processes of accumulation of civil type of social capital is practically not observed. The aim of the study was to identify the level of social capital in modern Russia through the study of interpersonal and institutional trust levels. The study showed that despite the positive changes of social trust in the past few years against the backdrop of social and political consolidation of Russian society and the state the formation of social capital and its transformation into a civil form of modern the Russian Federation are not observed. At the same time, it is worth noting that the strong dependence of the current financial and economic crisis on foreign environment minimizes the time horizon of possible states of social capital and trust. However, even in the favorable resolution of foreign policy and economic issues, we can assume that growth will be only in those indicators that have never been very stable. For a qualitative change in the situation with the Russian social capital there must be serious increase of the institutional effectiveness of the executive power institutions.