In the article, the authors deal with the problem of quality of governance in the European Union and its relation to factors like social capital and economic performance. For that, they see high quality of governance as a property of stabilised, i.e. highly developed democracy. Quality of governance consists of three dimensions: system persistence, inclusiveness and effectiveness. On the basis of this model, a comparison of the quality of governance (through a number of indicators used in different international research surveys) within the EU, especially between the 'old' (EU-15) and 'new' (EU-10) EU member-states, is conducted. It is evident that, in general, the 'new' EU members, regarding quality of governance, still lag behind 'old' European democracies. Authors establish that different components of governance are interconnected and interrelated. That also holds true for the quality of governance and both social capital and economic performance.
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