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The strongest claim of social capital is its likely effect on public policy outcomes, which is now demonstrated by a vast literature linking levels of social trust and social bonds with such desired goods as reduced crime, better economic performance, and improved health. There is already a modest literature linking public policy outcomes with better educational performance, to which the research for this paper seeks to add. By analysing a survey of 1249 15-16 year-olds, we test whether social capital measures increase self-recorded school performance and reduce intentions to leave school. We find that trust, voluntary action and social closure appear to have a strong impact on academic performance, but do not have a great impact on dropping out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have developed an institutional theory of generalized trust. Our argument is that the structure of contemporary institutions is an important and overlooked factor that matters for the generation of generalized trust. In particular, we develop a causal mechanism which explains and specifies the causal flow from impartial, un-biased and un-corrupt, just institutions responsible for the implementation of public policies to generalized trust. The impartiality and efficiency of these institutions influences basically citizens’ institutional trust and more specifically (1) how they experience feelings of safety and protection; (2) how citizens make inferences from the system and public officials to other citizens, (3) how citizens observe the behavior of fellow-citizens, and (4) how they experience discrimination against themselves or close others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article emphasizes the importance of social facts in understanding the causes and consequences of capital mobility and highlights the impact of understanding the social context in which policymaking is situated. It explores the views about structure and agency within rationalism and constructivism. It describes the importance of the social context.

The article presents a study which examined path dependecy and other models of diffusion applicable to both public policy and management diffusion. It also considers management innovations adopted within different government agencies, as well as the applications of diffusion models in the fields of sociology, business and communication. Forms of structural and interactive diffusion models are described.

This study proposes that the extent to which external factors influence state policy adoption depends, in part, on internal state characteristics, with external factors consisting of other states and the federal government and internal factors consisting of a particular state's political, economic, and programmatic circumstances. This insight is grounded in the study of program implementation, which suggests that policy necessarily evolves and adapts to local conditions, and in the study of institutions in sociology, which suggests that intra-organizational factors condition organizational responses to institutional pressures. The relevance of this insight for comparative state policy research is examined by applying mixed modeling techniques to data describing adoption of annual percentage reductions in Medicaid nursing facility per diem rates from 1981-1998. Results indicate that internal conditions favorable to adoption tend to magnify the effects of external influences, whereas internal conditions unfavorable to adoption tend to diminish their effects. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]