Social capital in Sweden and Hungary: Comparative analysis along the dimensions of trust, values and interpersonal relationships
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Copyright (c) 2024 CROSS-SECTIONS Social Science Journal

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A CC BY licence alkalmazása előtt megjelent cikkek esetében (2020 előtt) továbbra is a CC BY-NC-ND licence az érvényes.
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Abstract
This paper examines and compares the Swedish and Hungarian society along three dimensions: interpersonal (generalized) trust, interpersonal relationships, and values of cooperation. These are all crucial components of social capital, could be seen as its most relevant domains, which, in a macro perspective, express the cohesion and integration of a given society. Thus, the above-mentioned indicators provide deep insight into the social fabrics and dynamics of Sweden and Hungary, as well as the potential changes. The empirical analysis is based on data obtained from waves 1–10 of the European Social Survey (ESS). The relevance of the analysis is due to the specific representation of Sweden in the Hungarian political discourse and in some parts of the media. According to this framing integration and cohesion of the Swedish society is in an increasingly poor state, whereas in Hungary things are going much better. Our paper aims to shed light on this issue along the dimensions presented above. Our results show that, in terms of the dimensions of social capital examined, Swedish society is not in a bad state at all, and in fact presents a significantly more favourable picture than Hungarian society on the basis of the same indicators.
https://doi.org/10.18392/metsz/2024/4/1