A New Map of Social Capital in Italy: An Emerging Trade-Off Between Prosperity and Civic Engagement?

This chapter updates the geography of social capital in Italy, building on the territorial analyses of Putnam (1993) and Cartocci (2007). Using comparable provincial data for 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2022, it reconstructs the evolution of civic resources and examines their relationship with economic development. The geography of social capital still reflects Italy’s North–South divide but shows new dynamics: the decline of the former “red regions”, the strengthening of North-eastern provinces, and weaker social capital in large urban areas. At the same time, the link between GDP per capita and social capital has also weakened. The analysis suggests a curvilinear pattern: civic engagement increases with prosperity up to a threshold, beyond which it declines. This inverted-U relationship points to a potential trade-off between economic development and civic engagement. Overall, the chapter contributes to broader debates on modernisation by showing how rising prosperity may erode the social foundations of collective action.