This volume provides a collection of critical new perspectives on social capital theory by examining how social values, power relationships, and social identity interact with social capital. This book seeks to extend this theory into what have been largely under-investigated domains, and, at the same time, address long-standing, classic questions in the literature concerning the forms, determinants, and consequences of social capital. Social capital can be understood in terms of social norms and networks. It manifests itself in patterns of trust, reciprocity, and cooperation. The authors argue that the degree to which and the different ways in which people exhibit these distinctively social behaviours depend on how norms and networks elicit their values, reflect power relationships, and draw on their social identities. This volume accordingly adopts a variety of different concepts and measures that incorporate the variety of contextually-specific factors that operate on social capital formation. In addition, it adopts an interdisciplinary outlook that combines a wide range of social science disciplines and methods of social research. Our objective is to challenge standard rationality theory explanations of norms and networks which overlook the role of values, power, and identity. This volume appeals to researchers and students in multiple social sciences, including economics, sociology, political science, social psychology, history, public policy, and international relations, that employ social capital concepts and methods in their research. It can be seen as a set of new extensions of social capital theory in connection with its themes of social values, power, and identity that would advance the scholarly literature on social norms and networks and their impact on social change and public welfare.

This immensely readable book by Patrick François provides an original insight into the increasingly fashionable topic that is social capital. In a unique, original study, the author emphasises trustworthiness as a vital feature of social capital and argues that standard economic treatments of this phenomenon are inadequate. The book's richer

Previously the role of social capital - defined as the institutions and networks of relationships between people, and the associated norms and values - in programs of poverty alleviation and development has risen to considerable prominence. Although development practitioners have long suspected that social capital does affect the efficiency and quality of most development processes, this book provides the rigorous empirical results needed to confirm that impression and translate it into effective and informed policymaking. It is based on a large volume of collected data, relying equally on quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to establish approaches for measuring social capital and its impact. The book documents the pervasive role of social capital in accelerating poverty alleviation and rural development, facilitating the provision of goods and services, and easing political transition and recovery from civil conflicts.

In a 24/7 world and a global economy, there is no doubt that relationships impact virtually every economic transaction. In Relationship Economics, Lindon Robison and Bryan Ritchie argue that what needs to be understood is not just whether relationships matter (which, of course, they do), but also, how much, and in what circumstances they should matter. Providing a rigorous and measurable definition of the way that relationships among individuals create a capital, social capital, that can be saved, spent, and used like other forms of capital, Robison and Ritchie use numerous examples and insightful analysis, to explain how social capital shapes our ability to reduce poverty, understand corruption, encourage democracy, facilitate income equality, and respond to globalization. The first part of the book explains how social capital can be manipulated, stored, expended, and invested. The second part explores how levels of social capital within relationships influence economic transactions both positively and negatively, which in turn shape poverty levels, economic efficiency, levels and types of political participation, and institutional structures.

This book focuses on the concepts of social capital, corporate social responsibility, and economic development in relation to economic theory of institutions and behavioural economics. It also takes a macroeconomic and empirical approach, on the relationship between social capital, ethical behaviour and economic development.

The term 'social capital' is a way of conceptualizing the intangible resources of community, shared values and trust upon which we draw in daily life. It has achieved considerable currency in the social sciences through the very different work of Bourdieu in France, and James Coleman and Robert Putnam in the States, and has been taken up within politics and sociology as a means of explaining the decline of social cohesion and community values in many Western societies. This concise introduction, the only one currently available, explains the theoretical underpinning of the subject, the empirical work that has been done to explore its operation, and the effect that it has had on policy-making particularly within such international governmental bodies as the World Bank and the European Commission. With genuine cross-disciplinary appeal, this exceptional book will be of great interest to students of sociology, politics and social policy.

The idea of Social Capital is an attempt to incorporate social considerations into mainstream economic thinking. Its proponents feel that social factors are properly quantifiable. So, they use the compex algebra and statistics beloved of mainstream economic theory and measure 'units' of health care or education in the same way that they would machinery or transport. Ben Fine's main argument in this book is that such concers cannot be judged in terms of mathematical methods and that to try t odo so is overly simplistic. Fine assesses the impact of Social Impact across the social sciences and shows how economic analysis is being subsumed into these areas and how thinking in sociology and politics impacts upon economics.