Studies of social capital have concentrated upon either formal associative behaviour or informal social relations (networks). This article looks at the relationship between these two types of social capital by examining social networks, social and family support (informal social capital) on the one hand and associational behaviour along with social trust (formal social capital) on the other. Using the Eurobarometer 62.2 covering a representative sample of 27 countries the analysis found that with this approach, regions in Europe can be grouped according to the two dimensions, whether they are high on both forms of social capital (complementarity) or whether informal social capital substitutes for formal social capital (substitution). The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands had the highest levels of all forms of social capital. In the South and East of Europe informal social capital was more important, but whilst in the South this was mainly in the form of family support, in the East informal support outside the family was also important. Thus, we can speak of ‘social capital regimes’ to better understand the various cultures of participation and cohesion across Europe.

Social capital has become a much researched concept and there has been much theoretical speculation about unequal access to it. However, the cross-national empirical analysis of social capital in relation to social stratification and social inequality is lacking. In this article, we explore the relationship between social stratification and social capital across 27 European countries using the Eurobarometer (EB) 62.2 (N = 27,000) carried out in autumn 2004. Through the use of statistical modelling we are able to determine the extent to which individual characteristics, including occupational position and education, are associated with different measures of social capital and to set this within a cross-national context. We find that social stratification is an important element in understanding social capital both at a country and at an individual level. Upper layers of society have higher levels of social capital, especially through associational networks (formal social capital), although informal contacts were not so clearly stratified by class. Countries with high levels of inequality magnified these differences between classes, giving the upper classes further advantages. Patterns of social capital, therefore, tend to reflect or even perpetuate the stratification patterns of the society.

In this paper we suggest a way to measure the well-being of society based upon our own development of the Social Quality model. The Social Quality model has the advantage of being sociologically grounded as a measure of the well-being of society and the individuals within it. We test our model of Social Quality against life satisfaction as an indicator of how successful it is in delivering these aspirations. The model was tested on all European countries using the European Quality of Life Surveys in 2003 and 2007 and was found to explain a large amount of variance, which was consistent across time and space. We suggest that it is possible to operationalise this model using small number of variables, ones that are frequently used in comparative surveys and this should enable the quality of society to be measured in a parsimonious and effective way.

In rural UK, businesses are often isolated and have much to gain from healthy networks, yet studies show that many rural business owners fail to network effectively. Information communications technologies offer new ways to network that might benefit rural businesses by expanding their reach. This study looked at online and face‐to‐face networking behaviour among rural micro‐enterprises in Scotland in relation to the development of bonding and bridging social capital. Given the challenges of remoteness faced by many rural businesses, online networking is particularly useful in developing bridging capital, but is an unsuitable context for building the trust needed to gain tangible benefits. The article therefore highlights the importance of face‐to‐face interactions in developing trust and bonding social capital. Rural business owners face distinctive challenges with respect to online communications, which are explored in this article.

Acknowledgements This research was made possible by a grant from the EPSRC “Dot.Rural Digital Economy Hub” (EP/G066051/1) at the University of Aberdeen and EPSRC Communities and Culture Network+ (EP/K003585/1).Peer reviewedPostprin