Social Capital And Participation In Every Day Life

This timely volume puts emphasis on the effect of social capital on everyday life: how the routines of daily life lead people to get involved in their communities. Focussing on its micro-level causes and consequences, the book's international contributors argue that social capital is fundamentally concerned with the value of social networks and about how people interact with each other. The book suggests that different modes of participation have different consequences for creating - or destroying - a sense of community or participation. The diversity of countries, institutions and groups dealt with - from Indian castes to Dutch churches, from highly competent 'everyday makers' in Scandinavia to politics-avoiding Belgian women and Irish villagers - offers fascinating case studies, and theoretical reflections for the present debates about civil society and democracy.

This book deals with the theme of political participation in France, focusing on conventional and unconventional forms of political activism over the last three decades. Measures of social integration and political involvement are used to question the validity of social capital theory.

This volume argues that using social capital to eradicate poverty is unlikely to succeed because its mainstream approach mistakenly assumes that social capital necessarily benefits poor people. The inadequacy of that assumption, Sam Wong argues, calls for a reassessment of human motivations, institutional dynamics, and the complexity of structures in social capital building. Proposing a “pro-poor” perspective, in which poverty-specific outcomes are highlighted, he suggests an exploration of “unseen” social capital is in order—not only to challenge the mainstream understanding of “seen” social capital, but to demonstrate the need for everyday cooperation, which is shaped by social norms, influenced by conscious and unconscious motivations, and subject to changes in priority based on livelihood. A useful volume for both policy makers and practitioners, Exploring ‘Unseen’ Social Capital in Community Participation offers a fresh perspective in thinking about civic and social agency.

The Orthodox migration in the West matters, despite its unobtrusive presence. And it matters in a way that has not yet been explored in social and religious studies: in terms of size, geographical scope, theological input and social impact. This book explores the adjustment of Orthodox migrants and their churches to Western social and religious contexts in different scenarios. This variety is consistent with Orthodox internal diversity regarding ethnicity, migration circumstances, Church-State relations and in line with the specificities of the receiving country in terms of religious landscape, degree of secularisation, legal treatment of immigrant religious institutions or socio-economic configurations. Exploring how Orthodox identities develop when displaced from traditional ground where they are socially and culturally embedded, this book offers fresh insights into Orthodox identities in secular, religiously pluralistic social contexts.

Request a free trial of SAGE Knowledge to sample this title and many more! www.sagepub.com/freetrial Via 99 entries or "mini-chapters," the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series volumes on political science highlight the most important topics, issues, questions, and debates any student obtaining a degree in this field ought to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st century. 21st Century Political Science: A Reference Handbook serves as an authoritative reference source that meets students' research needs with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not so much jargon, detail, or density as a journal article or a research handbook chapter. An editorial advisory board comprised of eminent scholars from various subfields, many of whom are also award-winning teachers, selected the most important general topics in the discipline. The two volumes are divided into six major parts: 1) General Approaches of Political Science; 2) Comparative Politics; 3) International Relations; 4) Political Science Methodology; 5) Political Thought; and 6) American Politics. A section on identity politics includes chapters on topics such as Race, Ethnicity, and Politics; Gender and Politics; Religion and Politics; and LGBT Issues/ Queer Theory. This two-volume resource makes fairly complex approaches in political science accessible to advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students.

Many scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers in the cultural sector argue that Canadian cultural policy is at a crossroads: that the environment for cultural policy-making has evolved substantially and that traditional rationales for state intervention no longer apply. The concept of cultural citizenship is a relative newcomer to the cultural policy landscape, and offers a potentially compelling alternative rationale for government intervention in the cultural sector. Likewise, the articulation and use of cultural indicators and of governance concepts are also new arrivals, emerging as potentially powerful tools for policy and program development. Accounting for Culture is a unique collection of essays from leading Canadian and international scholars that critically examines cultural citizenship, cultural indicators, and governance in the context of evolving cultural practices and cultural policy-making. It will be of great interest to scholars of cultural policy, communications, cultural studies, and public administration alike.

Recent years have seen the concept of social capital gain increasing currency, besides courting controversy, both in academic social science writing and in the development discourse of multilateral donor agencies. It has been viewed as an explanation for both the flourishing of democracy and economic development, and therefore as the potential key to successful development practices in the developing world. Presenting varied experiences of the interaction between social capital and the democratic functioning of a variety of institutions in India, the essays in this volume subject the notion of social capital to close and thorough scrutiny. The critique of social capital that this volume provides is strongly anchored in empirical case studies of three kinds: - field-based micro-studies in rural areas - sectoral studies in the areas of joint forest management, environment and education - macro-studies which relate indicators of human development to dimensions of social capital The contributors explore central issues concerning the inter-relationship between social capital and democracy. Additionally, they address important questions such as: Does social capital inhere in some communities and associations and not in others? Can it be `constructed` and, if so, which are the agencies best suited to do so?