The relationship between social capital and political participation of citizens (Case study: Gorgan)

Political participation as one of the measures of political development in the world, is now one of the most important and most basic concepts in political and social science. So that in practical politics and theoretical enjoys a prominent position. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between social capital and political participation. In terms of methodology, this research is descriptive (survey), and in terms of data collection, is field study. Population includes all residents older than 19 years in Gorgan city, which a sample include 407 people that calculated using random sampling stratified method was selected and studied. The data collection instruments was researcher make questionnaire, which approved its validity with using Face validity and it’s reliability approved by Alpha Cronbach's coefficient which calculated for the concepts of social capital and political participation, respectively (α = 0/896 and 0/780). and 0 had been approved. Ha Finding showed that the average of social capital and political participation of citizens are 2.674 and 3.442 up to 5. In the "low" and "moderate" is. As well as the results of the test hypotheses suggests that there are significance relationship between social capital and its dimensions (except for social interaction) with political participation. On the factors influencing political participation, it can be said that in a total of 9.4 percent of variance of the dependent variable explaned by social participation, education and age.