Social capital

The debate of community versus modernization of society and individualism has been the most discussed topic among the founders of sociology: such theorists as Tönnies (1887),[5] Durkheim (1893),[6] Simmel (1905),[7] Weber (1946)[8] were convinced that industrialisation and urbanization were transforming social relationships in an irreversible way.

Such a set of theories became dominant in the last centuries, but many thinkers questioned the complicated relationship between modern society and the importance of old institutions, in particular family and traditional communities.

In the words of Stein (1960:1): "The price for maintaining a society that encourages cultural differentiation and experimentation is unquestionably the acceptance of a certain amount of disorganization on both the individual and social level."

Portes (2000), for example, notes that the term has become so widely used, including in mainstream media, that "the point is approaching at which social capital comes to be applied to so many events and in so many different contexts as to lose any distinct meaning.

[38] He defines social capital as "the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.

Putnam also suggests that a root cause of the decline in social capital is women's entry into the workforce, which could correlate with time restraints that inhibit civic organizational involvement like parent-teacher associations.

The importance of social capital for economic development is that these norms of behavior reduce transaction cost of exchange such as legal contracts and government regulations.

However, Fukuyama argues despite the risk of society having too much social capital, it is nonetheless worse to have too little and be unable to organize for public goods and welfare enhancing activity.

Carlos García Timón describes that the structural dimensions of social capital relate to an individual ability to make weak and strong ties to others within a system.

Research by Sheri Berman and Dylan Riley, as well as economists Shanker Satyanath, Nico Voigtländer, and Hans-Joachim Voth, have linked civic associations to the rise of fascist movements.

"Germans threw themselves into their clubs, voluntary associations, and professional organizations out of frustration with the failures of the national government and political parties, thereby helping to undermine the Weimar Republic and facilitate Hitler's rise to power."

In this article about the fall of the Weimar Republic, the author makes the claim that Hitler rose to power so quickly because he was able to mobilize the groups towards one common goal.

Additionally, in his essay "A Criticism of Putnam's Theory of Social Capital",[62] Michael Shindler expands upon Berman's argument that Weimar social clubs and similar associations in countries that did not develop democracy, were organized in such a way that they fostered a "we" instead of an "I" mentality among their members, by arguing that groups which possess cultures that stress solidarity over individuality, even ones that are "horizontally" structured and which were also common to pre-Soviet Eastern Europe, will not engender democracy if they are politically aligned with non-democratic ideologies.

[65] Robert Putnam, in his later work, also suggests that social capital, and the associated growth of public trust are inhibited by immigration and rising racial diversity in communities.

In fact, Varshney himself notes that intra-ethnic policing (equivalent to the "self-policing" mechanism proposed by Fearon and Laitin, 1996)[70] may lead to the same result as interethnic engagement.

In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam writes:[23]Henry Ward Beecher's advice a century ago to 'multiply picnics' is not entirely ridiculous today.

[77] Value interjection: refers to the behavior of individuals or groups adhering to societal norms by meeting expected obligations, such as following established rules, timely bill payments, and punctuality.

Diligent adherence contributes personal advantages like financial stability and improved relationships, as well as broader societal gains, including enhanced market confidence and perceived reliability.

Coleman goes on to say that when people live in this way and benefit from this type of social capital, individuals in the society are able to rest assured that their belongings and family will be safe.

[citation needed] Sociologists Carl L. Bankston and Min Zhou have argued that one of the reasons social capital is so difficult to measure is that it is neither an individual-level nor a group-level phenomenon, but one that emerges across levels of analysis as individuals participate in groups.

The ultimate outcome of the study indicates that social capital is measurable and is a concept that may be operationalized to understand strategies for coping with cross-cultural immersion through online engagement.

They found that confidence and civic cooperation have a great impact in economic growth, and that in less polarized societies in terms of inequality and ethnic differences, social capital is bigger.

This includes: Robison and colleagues (2012) measured the relative importance of selfishness and four social capital motives using resource allocation data collected in hypothetical surveys and non-hypothetical experiments.

[72][104][105][106] This definition is very close to that of the third sector, which consists of "private organisations that are formed and sustained by groups of people acting voluntarily and without seeking personal profit to provide benefits for themselves or for others.

"[citation needed] According to such authors as Walzer (1992), Alessandrini (2002),[72] Newtown, Stolle & Rochon, Foley & Edwards (1997),[45] and Walters, it is through civil society, or more accurately, the third sector, that individuals are able to establish and maintain relational networks.

"[45] Alessandrini agrees, saying that, "in Australia in particular, neo-liberalism has been recast as economic rationalism and identified by several theorists and commentators as a danger to society at large because of the use to which they are putting social capital to work.

Since social capital is readily available no matter the type of community, it is able to override more traditional queues for political engagement; e.g.: education, employment, civil skills, etc.

A few examples of these characteristics are: The often informal nature of female social capital allows women to politicize apolitical environments without conforming to masculine standards, thus keeping this activity at a low public profile.

[146] In the setting of education through Kilpatrick, Johns, and Mulford (2010) state that "social capital is a useful lens for analysing lifelong learning and its relationship to community development.

"[150] Marjoribanks and Kwok (1998) conducted a survey in Hong Kong secondary schools with 387 fourteen-year-old students with an aim to analyse female and male adolescents differential educational achievement by using social capital as the main analytic tool.