A 'social trap' is a situation where individuals, groups or organisations are unable to cooperate owing to mutual distrust and lack of social capital, even where cooperation would benefit all. Examples include civil strife, pervasive corruption, ethnic discrimination, depletion of natural resources and misuse of social insurance systems. Much has been written attempting to explain the problem, but rather less material is available on how to escape it. In this book, Bo Rothstein explores how social capital and social trust are generated and what governments can do about it. He argues that it is the existence of universal and impartial political institutions together with public policies which enhance social and economic equality that creates social capital. By introducing the theory of collective memory into the discussion, Rothstein makes an empirical and theoretical claim for how universal institutions can be established.

The articles in this special issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy are unusual in two respects. First, they reflect the practical wisdom of seasoned actors, rather than the theoretical knowledge of academicians. The typically unexamined assumption of the academy is that good practice in the world is simply the application of sound theory from the academy. It does not take long in the public arena, however, to discover that leaders there are not applying theory from the academy to the decisions they face. Rather, they base their interventions on what they have learned about people, organizations, conflict, race, and politics in the rough and tumble of living in the world. Their working understandings may be valuably leavened by theory, but are not guided primarily by it. Second, the authors were not separate individuals working on isolated issues, like children engaged in parallel play, but rather partners in a fluid, informal, collaborative social action network operating in an environment of constantly shifting challenges and possibilities for change. The authors are not a collection of “Is”; they are a “we.” They decided pragmatically to connect their power—their political and financial and social capital—at critical moments to accomplish shared goals. The network grew more powerful in the process, becoming more than the sum of its organizational parts. This volume is ours, as was the collective action out of which it emerged. Like a choir’s songs, its articles give voice to a group’s experiences. Each is a part of a larger whole. Whenever I speak about how Hurricane Katrina changed New Orleans, an audience member invariably asks: “Would the changes you described have occurred without a hurricane?” The simple answer is “no,” but a fuller response is required to do justice to the situation: Nature can create temporary vacuums but it cannot fill them. The coalition-led public meetings, action campaigns, election fights, and legislative lobbying recounted here, and the transformations they caused, might not have happened in the wake of the great storm. But they did. In these pages you will meet some of those whose practical wisdom, courage and integrity drove those changes.

Over fifty years ago, Albert Hirschman argued that dissatisfied consumers could either voice complaint or exit when they were dissatisfied with goods or services. Loyal consumers would voice rather than exit. Hirschman argued that making exit easier from publicly provided services, such as health or education, would reduce voice, taking the richest and most articulate away and this would lead to the deterioration of public services. This book provides the first thorough empirical study of these ideas. Using a modified version of Hirschman's account, examining private and collective voice, and viewing loyalty as a form of social investment, it is grounded on a dedicated five-year panel study of British citizens. Given government policies over the past decade or more which make exit easier from public providers, this is a timely publication for all those who care about the quality of government services.

Many who critique democracy as practiced in East Asia suggest that the Confucian political culture of these nations prevents democracy from being the robust participatory type, and limits it to a spectacle designed to create obedience from the public. Certainly some East Asian nations have had elections for decades, but democracy is far more than periodic elections. For democracy to be meaningful, a country needs an active public sphere, political tolerance, egalitarian beliefs, and vigorous political participation. The Asian-values debate focuses on whether the creation of this optimal version of democracy in East Asian nations will be hindered by their shared Confucian cultural heritage and at the center of this debate is whether there is an active political culture in East Asia that allows citizens to freely discuss, debate, and disagree about politics. With Japan as its focus, this book examines the role of social networks and political discussion in Japanese political culture and asks whether discursive participatory democracy is indeed possible in East Asia. In order to answer this queston the authors undertook the largest academic political survey ever conducted in Japan to give the book exceptional empirical credence. This data reveals how the Japanese people interact politically, concluding that through the powerful influence of social networks on Japanese political behaviour, Japan has a more globalized and less hierarchical society where Confucian culture is not dominant and where creation of a vibrant civil society is possible . This book will be invaluable for students and scholars of Japanese politics, democracy, civil society, and globalization.

Given the current global economic crisis that has its root causes in the psychology of the marketplace every bit as much as any other factor, the Handbook of Social Capital is timely, insightful, informed, informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking reading. . . A compilation of impressive and extensive scholarship, the Handbook of Social Capital is strongly recommended for academic and professional library reference collections. Library Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review The Handbook of Social Capital offers an important contribution to the study of bonding and bridging social capital networks, balancing the troika of sociology, political science and economics. Eminent contributors, including Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom, explore the different scientific approaches required if international research is to embrace both the bright and the more shadowy aspects of social capital. The Handbook stresses the importance of trust for economies all over the world and contains a strong advocacy for cross-disciplinary work within the social sciences. Social capital is becoming one of the most important and hotly discussed topics of today. This inter-disciplinary Handbook intends to serve as a bridge for students and scholars across the social sciences.

For this book Bartkus and Davis assembled the social capital equivalent of the New York Yankees slugger s row of the 1950s, recruiting some of the best Hall of Fame hitters around along with a number of future stars still early in their careers. The result is a good reflection of the current state of the literature on social capital. Robert D. Putnam, Harvard University, US Social capital is widely used and sometimes mis-used by scholars, policymakers, and the general public. The time has come for thoughtful reflection, synthesis, and informed criticism regarding this important concept. Bartkus and Davis have developed a ground-breaking collection of essays exploring the ideas and evidence underpinning social capital. Denise M. Rousseau, Carnegie Mellon University, US At heart, social capital is a simple concept that relationships matter. Bartkus and Davis foster a vibrant debate among leading scholars as to the critical definition, creation, and consequences of social capital. I commend Bartkus and Davis for their interdisciplinary efforts, for there is no more important challenge facing the social sciences today than the exploration of trust and social capital in our society. Father Theodore Hesburgh, University of Notre Dame, US Social capital has taken the social sciences by storm yet remains fraught with controversy. Despite its complexity and conceptual difficulties, the persistent interest in social capital arises from the fact that it helps us make sense of why people do what they do. This book showcases new innovative research in economics, politics, sociology, and management regarding the topic. Leading scholars from a variety of disciplines present ground-breaking new research exploring the still-undiscovered value of social capital. The book employs a self-consciously multi-disciplinary approach to address two objectives: reaching out and reaching in. Through theoretical and empirical scholarship, the authors explore the many contexts in which the phenomenon can have impact. In effect, social capital research reaches out to issues of economic well-being, civic participation, educational achievement, knowledge and norm formation, and competitive advantage. Further, the authors investigate the many connections between the core themes of social capital and the pillars on which it rests, including structural networks, cognition, relationships and trust. This book is fundamentally about bridging bridging across disciplines, units of analysis, and themes. Scholars, students, and other interested readers from the social sciences and management will find this book challenging and illuminating.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the authors invaluably pinpoint both overarching problems and possibilities associated with the social dimension of European integration. Prominent researchers of economics, law and political science tackle this complex issue, providing new solutions within their respective fields of expertise. Illustrating the importance of cohesion, this book is vital for those interested in comparative European studies, from backgrounds in public and social policy, law and economics.