Social Capital -a Local Government Perspective

Research Paper, 2023

This research focuses on a three-year study endeavor that is succinct. It describes how to get social capital, where to find it, and why it's important to understand social economy and community development after addressing its definition. Social capital has just become the flavor of the month. There is a lot of disagreement about what the term entails, which necessitates guesswork and estimating of the build. Advertisers in the wellness industry, for example, are being tested to see whether they can redesign their campaigns around this contested idea. Although social capital does not yet exist, it is created by the aspects of social relations that individual scholars or analysts choose to consider in its name. Philosophy is in charge of deciding these relationships. To those who adhere to a neoliberal, marketdriven mindset, social capital is a means of reaching the limit of monetary progress, as well as a means of accelerating the privatization or reduction of public agencies. Local area enhancement is one of many state interventions used to mitigate market inequity. Experts, scientists, and strategy creators may find that incorporating social capital into financial and monetary discussions is a good notion. The main factor is to build community and social capital for strong relationship is trust. In any event, its application should be approached with caution as a potentially critical development. It is important not to confuse such threats with the great work done for the purpose of fortifying and limiting the local region.

European Journal of Social Theory, 2001

The concept of social capital has become more important in understanding contemporary economic development in the era of globalization. This concept, however, requires a theoretical framework that could help to distinguish between forms of social capital with positive effects on local development and other forms that may have negative consequences. This article argues that in order to understand this difference, two conditions are crucial. First, social capital has to be considered in terms of social relations and social networks, rather than in terms of culture and civicness. The second condition is that the interaction between social capital and other institutions, especially political institutions, has to be carefully analysed. Therefore, this article points to the crucial role of political factors - of the `embedded autonomy' of political action - in favouring a positive role of social capital in local economic development.

Sustainable Development and Planning IV, 2009

This study aims to present the process for the development of a social capital measurement tool, which was adapted to the Greek socio-cultural context. The validity and the reliability of this social capital questionnaire were evaluated in a sample of 318 adults drawn from two different mountain rural areas in Greece. The social capital questionnaire is a useful instrument in measuring the existent stock of social capital and in understanding the local development "physiognomy" of two Greek mountainous rural areas. However, we should keep in mind that the reliability of responses to questionnaires is always questionable, in particular for subjective questions about social norms. This is why detailed interviews constitute a precious tool to corroborate the results of a survey. For this reason, the present survey was subsequently followed up by 46 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with selected participants in both areas. The overall socioeconomic status of the two case study areas was assessed in relation to a wide variety of social capital related variables. Using the data collected from the quantitative research, the paper describes how social capital is distributed geographically between the two different mountain areas. On the whole, both case study areas appear not to be substantially different in aggregate levels of social capital. Therefore, social capital seems to be different in its characteristics and underlying structure in both case study areas.

2004

The main objective of this article is to broadly describe how social capital matters in community development and what sort of issues have been raised in previous studies with re- spect to data collection, measuring social capital and data analysis. In conclusion, although so- cial capital seems to affect the level of community development to some extent, we should keep in mind several issues when measuring social capital.

Social Research Reports, 2019

This paper presents the results of a research on the role played by social capital in the development of a community. The aim is to reveal the virtues of the social capital concept and to analyse its practical value on the ground. The focus is on how a community reacts to the development proposals received from diff erent social agents. The results show the diff erent ways in which community members respond to the proposed initiatives according to their age and training. The conclusions highlight the fact that in the collective consciousness, there are multiple representations of the common future of a community.

Housing Policy Debate, 2001

This article argues that contemporary interest in social capital by community development theorists, funders, and practitioners is misguided and needs to be thoroughly rethought. It argues that social capital, as understood by Robert Putnam and people influenced by his work, is a fundamentally flawed concept because it fails to understand issues of power in the production of communities and because it is divorced from economic capital. Therefore, community development practice based on this understanding of social capital is, and will continue to be, similarly flawed. The article further argues that instead of Putnam's understanding of social capital, community development practice would be better served by returning to the way the concept was used by Glenn Loury and Pierre Bourdieu and concludes with a discussion of how these alternative theories of social capital can be realized in community development practice.

Research Paper, 2023

Social Capital has just become the flavor of the month. There is a lot of disagreement about what the term entails, which necessitates guesswork and estimating of the build. Advertisers in the wellness industry, for example, are being tested to see whether they can redesign their campaigns around this contested idea. Although social capital does not yet exist, it is created by those aspects of social connections that individual scholars or analysts choose to consider in its name. Philosophy is in charge of deciding these relationships. To those who adhere to a neoliberal, market-driven mindset, social capital is a means of reaching the limit of monetary progress, as well as a means of accelerating the privatization or reduction of public agencies. Local area enhancement is one of many state interventions used to mitigate market inequity.

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 1999

Lect. univ. drd. GABRIEL BĂDESCU ASSESSING THE ROLE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM: THE CASE OF DEVELOPING HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS Some collectivities are more efficient than others in achieving common goals and one important factor that explains success is the capacity of their members to cooperate. Game theorists have studied this phenomenon under a variety of circumstances and shown that failure to cooperate for mutual benefit does not necessarily signal ignorance or irrationality. (Raub and Voss 1986) On the contrary, theory underpredicts cooperation and finds more actors who defect than empirical tests usually indicate. Recently, scholars in sociology, economics and political science have converged on the concept of social capital as a comprehensive explanation of why members of some communities cooperate and are able in that way to resolve collective problems while members of other communities choose to defect and their collective purposes are not attained. Coleman (1990), who brought the term into wider circulation argued that social capital can be defined by its function and "it is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: They all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure". (Coleman 1990) Many scholars have worked on determining the effects of social capital over the community they characterize or, at a more general level, of the society. Others insisted more on assessing factors that affect social capital. In his study of 20 subnational governments in Italy, Putnam (1993) argued that the quality of governance is determined by the level of social capital in the region. He determined, also, an exceptional durability of social capital for the Italy case, implying that intentional acts to increase the stock of social capital in a community can have very low effects if any. More recent works express a different view: institutional arrangements influence the level of social capital. Tarrow (1996) and Jackman and Miller (1996a, 1996b) argue that a political institutional approach that endogenizes social capital is more effective in

There is growing interest in the social sciences in the concept of social capital and the role it plays in facilitating collaborative and collective actions. Within political science, it is the work of Robert Putnam which has dominated social capital research. This paper argues that the 'Putnam-school' approach is lacking in two main respects. First, the role played by public authorities in the creation of social capital is neglected. Second, the implications for governance cannot simply be read off from associational activity and 'stocks' of social capital. The concept of the political opportunity structure is offered and adapted to develop a framework for social capital analysis. Original empirical material from Birmingham is drawn upon and compared to earlier studies of the city in order to support and illustrate the arguments of the paper.

2021

Social Capital theory offers public policy a new paradigmatic approach to solving social problems. Despite being ill defined and difficult to measure, numerous claims have been made about its benefits. As it facilitates collective action among the actors, it leads to increased level of performance in several public policy areas. briefly describing about the social capital and it’s theories, hear this research try to understand relationship between social capital and public policy. It further demonstrates how social capital framework is applied and works in Indian context. Then it offers empirical case studies of social capital in covid-19 pandemic and the Nepal’s Chhaupadi tradition to represent how social capital needs to compliance in non-compliance of policy respectively.