Civicness, social relations and environmental behaviour: a new kaleidoscope of social capital in Italy

Despite a longstanding debate, research on social capital in Italy is waning. This article renews this topic by offering novel methodological and theoretical advancements. We shed new light on the phenomenon by integrating classical social capital dimensions (civicness, social relations) with environmental attitudes. Our analysis, utilizing an original clustering technique on individual-level data, reveals the departure of certain regions of the Mezzogiorno from the traditional North-South divide in social capital. Furthermore, this study challenges the conventional territorial cleavage by demonstrating that Southern regions exhibit greater pro-environmental behaviours, providing fresh perspectives for sustainable development.