SOCIAL CAPITAL AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN REGIONS OF KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Robert Putnam argues that ethnic and racial diversity leads to a decline in trust and networking in the American context. As a result, people “hunker down like turtles” and withdraw from social life. The purpose of this article is to examine whether ethnic diversity reduces social trust and networking in Kazakhstan.

The study uses data from the World Values Survey (2018–2020) and the National Bureau of Statistics of Kazakhstan. The regions of Kazakhstan were classified as ethnically homogeneous or heterogeneous based on the calculation of the Hirschman–Herfindahl index of ethnic diversity. Data on social trust and networking were obtained from the World Values Survey for 14 regions and 3 cities of national significance in Kazakhstan.

The relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust/networking was measured using correlation analysis. The results show that ethnic diversity is negatively associated with social trust, whereas networking does not correlate with ethnic diversity in the local context.