Health-promotive and exclusionary mechanisms in civil society – a critical review of the empirical support for Putnam’s view of social capital

Abstract

A critical, integrative review in the SocINDEX database was conducted to screen empirically grounded research on civil society and health among youth. Our initial search string resulted in 477 hits, and our final selection was 58 articles. We found both promotive and excluding processes emanating from civil society. The engaged participants seem to empower themselves and live healthier lives, but simultaneously, they tend to exclude those with poorer health and status. Civil society does not seem to have the ability to resolve the existing stratifications, and there are risks of reinforcing the existing inequalities. Partly due to insufficient theoretical detail, there was also significant room for circular reasoning since the operationalisations of participation in civil society, social capital and health often overlapped. Of the three mechanisms proposed by Robert Putnam as links between networks and health, social control seems to have the best support in the reviewed empirical studies.