Generalized trust varies across individuals and countries. Past studies on trust have demonstrated that voluntary association membership, inequality and ethnic homogeneity at country level are important. However, those studies examined either individual-level or country-level factors separately. In this paper, we conceptualized the emergence of…

After 25 years of intense scrutiny, social capital remains an important yet highly debated concept in social science research. This research uses data from youth and mentors in several chapters of Big Brothers/Big Sisters to assess the importance of different mentoring relationship characteristics in creating positive outcomes among youths. The…

To test claims that postcolonial civil violence is a common legacy of colonialism, we create a dataset on the colonial heritage of 160 countries and explore whether a history of colonialism is related to indicators of inter-communal conflict, political rebellion and civil war in the years 1960-1999. The analysis provides evidence against sweeping…