Civic Culture, Institutions and Quality of Governments
Peter Kotzian

Abstract
Does civic culture have a payoff in terms of quality of government? In addition to institutions, culture is seen as relevant for the political performance of countries. Just as the economy benefits from certain individual-level attitudes for its smooth operating, quality of governance requires certain properties and attitudes of citizens which concern the involvement of the citizen into the political proceedings. Despite strong theoretical arguments, there is little empirical research on the effects of political culture on governmental performance. In particular, there is a lack of studies comparing the effect of genuinely political elements of civic culture with the effect of institutions on governmental quality. This paper undertakes an analysis of the effects of political and social capital on the quality of governments. Using a sample of 48 countries, our finding indicates that there are positive effects of political capital on the level and the development of governmental quality.

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