Introduction -- Part I. Creating Social Capital -- People I Have Known: The Human Face of Popular Politics -- Creating ’we’: Sandinismo and bridging social capital -- Creating ’us’ and ’them’: Peronism and bonding social capital -- Part II. An Empirical Examination of the Argument -- A tale of two neighborhoods: social capital in Nicaragua and Argentina -- Democracy and its competitors: Political values in Nicaragua and Argentina -- Participation, democratic institutions and procedures -- Part III. Making Democracy Work Without Social Capital: Institutional Capital -- If you build it they will come: institutional capital in democratic development -- Conclusion