This article initiates a theoretical and methodological discussion on the problems raised in Robert D. Putnam's Making Democracy Work, published in 1993. Looking at its structural logic as well as its analytical affinities with earlier literature, the paper focuses specifically on the theoretical and empirical meanings of the concepts of "social capital" and "confidence". It concludes by identifying a research agenda that, while promising, is also evidently "immature", both from the point of view of the theory's empirical operationalization as well as in relation to a need for more precise analytical specification of the meaning of its central categories.
social capital; confidence; Robert D. Putnam; democratic theory; rational choice; pluralism
