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Social Capital and the Second-Generation Theories of Collective Action: An Analytical Approach to the Forms of Social Capital.
- Source :
-
Conference Papers -- American Political Science Association . 2002 Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, p1-36. 36p. 2 Diagrams. - Publication Year :
- 2002
-
Abstract
- Social capital reflects a way of conceptualizing how cultural, structural, and institutional aspects of small to large groups in a society interact and affect economic and political change. It is a core concept of a synthesizing framework that can be applied whenever collective endeavors of individuals are critical in achieving a collective goal. We identify trustworthiness, networks, and institutions as three basic forms of social capital. theories of collective action, especially its second-generation versions that incorporate heterogeneous preferences of individuals, are the key building blocks in constructing a theoretically sound social capital perspective.We think that one of the most important reasons why the concept of social capital appears to be so ambiguous is an often-unnoticed divide within the social capital camp itself. One set of social capital researchers bestows priority to a group's cultural factors (summarized in this paper as people's trustworthiness). Others maintain the mainstream neoclassical approach in which values and cultural factors are epiphenomenal to structural incentives.We take the non-reductionist view that trustworthiness - a term referring to the characteristics of individual preferences that facilitate individuals to behave cooperatively in social dilemmas even in the absence of structural and institutional incentives to do so - is not only a non-reducible but also a critical form of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Conference Papers -- American Political Science Association
- Publication Type :
- Conference
- Accession number :
- 17985333