社會資本與信任：東亞社會資本調查的反思

Social Capital and Trust:Reflections on Data from the East Asia Social Capital Survey

民主化過程中的民眾社團參與、信任規範和政府效能之間的因果關係，始終都是西方政治學家和社會學家關懷的議題，但社會學家應該探索出更適合解釋民主化過程中的東亞市民社會的路徑。2012年的東亞社會資本調查中提供了臺灣、日本、南韓及中國民眾的個人接觸網絡、社團參與、政府效能及社會信任等資料。在和其他東亞三地資料比較的過程中，我驚訝地發現臺灣民眾在公民社會參與、政府效能及社會信任上獨特的現像。臺灣社會民眾社團參與的比例特別低，但日常生活每天接觸的社會資源量多，且異質性的個人社會資本特別豐富；民眾對政府特別地覺得無力影響政府的作為，故對政治極度地沒興趣，也對政府各類制度代理人信任度特別低；但卻對社會與鄰里有高度的關懷且願意為社會付出。從這次東亞社會資本的調查比較描述性分析所勾勒出來的圖像來看，臺灣和日本是公民社會組織層級化的軸線的兩個對立的端點，臺灣社團參與的組織社會資本對於人際信任、制度信任和一般信任都沒有任何作用，但臺灣民眾的個人接觸網絡的社會資本對於人際信任和一般信任的形成產生影響力。反觀日本民眾高度的社團參與（四國最高，八成以上民眾）所生產的組織社會資本是制度信任和一般信任的基礎。2012年東亞社會資本調查提供了東亞社會學家發展一條對東亞公民社會建構的一條可能的理論解釋機制。

Western political scientists and sociologists have shown strong interest in causal relations among participation in voluntary associations, trust norms, and political efficacy in democratization. However, few have explored appropriate explanatory paths among these concepts in East Asian democratization processes and civil society. In this paper I use data from the 2012 Social Capital Survey in East Asia on accessed networks, participation in voluntary associations, political efficacy, and social trust. A surprising and unique phenomenon in relations among civic participation, political efficacy and social trust was observed for Taiwan compared to the other three countries (Japan, Korea and China). Participation in voluntary associations was very low, but the volume and variety of social resources embedded in accessed networks were exceptionally high. Apparently, the majority of the voting public feels incapable of influencing government performance, therefore they have very low interest in politics and very high distrust of government agencies. However, they do show concern about neighborhood issues and claim that they are willing to contribute to their society. Results from comparative and descriptive analyses of the survey indicate that Taiwan and Japan are at two opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of hierarchical structures of civic organizations. In Taiwan, organizational social capital tied to participating in voluntary associations apparently does not affect personal, institutional, or general trust, yet individual social capital embedded in accessed social networks affects both personal and general trust. In contrast, the largest percentage of participants in voluntary associations among the four countries in the survey was in Japan (>80%), creating organizational social capital serving as the basis of institutional and general trust.