Democracy is the notion broadly used to denote a society’s commitment towards freedom and a better way of life. The minimum conditions that a country must adhere to in order to be acknowledged as democratic refer to arrangements between rulers and the ruled. In that sense, the key attributes of democracy are institutional guarantees referred to as either political rights and liberties or contestation for public office power and people’s participation. To the extent that these key attributes of democracy are shaped within a variety of different societal contexts, democracy is not a quality that either exists or not. Rather, different democracies exist depending largely on a wide set of societal characteristics. The research aim relates to the analysis of the relationship between democracy and social capital in Greece. In particular, we try to answer the question of whether we can speak of a “democracy – trust continuum” in Greece as suggested by the available literature, and if yes, where in this continuum could we possibly place Greece. An exploratory meta-analysis is used in order to sketch the country’s profile with respect to these phenomena and analyze the democracy – types of trust interrelationship as manifested in the case of Greece.
Keywords: Democracy, social capital, social trust, Greece.
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