Ethnic Diversity and Social Capital: Mechanisms, Conditions and Causality

The debate on trust, cooperation, and civic engagement in ethnically diverse communities has proliferated rapidly over the last decade. Dozens of studies have been conducted on a variety of countries and levels of analysis, across a range of indicators of social capital, and using divergent operationalizations of diversity. The outcomes of these studies have been almost as varied as their research designs. The time has come to draw up the balance. The conference will focus on the discussion about causal mechanisms linking diversity and social capital.