Does East Asian Social Capital Bring about Beneficial Effects over Its Indigenous Cultural Constraints?

East Asian social networks, as compared with North Americans', are often colored with their emphasis on hierarchy. In tandem with network structures, East Asian cultural context also stresses that hierarchy is essential in society, which is often modeled after traditional kinship networks. As was revealed in a book by Ikeda & Richey (2011) in Japanese cultural contexts, this hierarchical nature does affect Japanese political trust, knowledge, and participation. However, we are not certain that the case is true for other East Asian cultural contexts, i.e. the generalizability of the findings. This paper will focus on this point.  Using EASS 2012 dataset (East Asia Social Survey among Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Mainland China), we will show comparative analyses of social network and its effects on social trust, social support, and political/ social participation, especially focusing on the hierarchical nature of "Asian" social networks.