week 8 - social capital

Question 1

Defining civil society

Answer 1

• A sphere of social interaction between the state and the private sphere, a sphere of associations especially voluntary, social movements and public contact and communication

Question 2

What can civil society do?

Answer 2

• cultivate personal virtue
• re-create bonds in fragmented modern society
• broaden sense of self-interest
• enable collective action
• protect society against state intrusions
• serve as a school for democracy

Question 3

Civil societies effects:

Answer 3

• can create inequality
• Karl Marx:
  a) civil society emerges as the bourgeoisie throws off the fetters of feudalism
  b) bourgeoisie civil society: individualism, atomization, and the instrumentalization of people
  c) it’s freedom enables deepening of inequality

Question 4

Civil society includes state (Ernest Gellner, conditions of liberty)

Answer 4

a) Applied Marxism: state monopolize truth, undermined societal freedom and independence
b) Real civil society: not just a strong society, but also a strong state
c) a Western development - so don’t engage in a naïve universalization of one rather fortunate kind of man

Question 5

The state and civil society (jacob levy)

Answer 5

The state is what liberates us from the lack of freedom in civil society

Question 6

Putnam on social capital

Answer 6

Revives republicanism:

• anti-monarchism (no)
• emphasis on civic virtue and the pursuit of the public good (yes)
• civil community: participation, emphasis on public good, trust, tolerance
• but, attainable based on self-interest rather than virtue

Question 7

Define success:

Answer 7

• effectiveness

- responsiveness

Question 8

Does a successful democratic government depend on civic community?

Answer 8

• civic community rich in active participation, emphasizing public good over private ends, solidarity, trust and tolerance
• how can we tell?
  a) establish syndrome of civicness - measured by associational activity, union membership, newspaper readership, political participation
  b) establish that these measures are highly inter correlated
  c) test relationship between civicness and institutional performance
  (Find variation in civicness of Italian region)

Question 9

Social capital is key

Answer 9

Social capital: norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement
- social: trust in an emergent property of society- norms, networks, trust - not individuals
- capital: trust builds through use, investment
Ex. Rotating credit associations (depend upon high level of trust)
- social capital spurs economic development, makes democracy work, makes people happier
- two possible equilibria (where change is unlikely)
a) never cooperate (south)
b) Brave reciprocity (North)

Question 10

How did northern Italy find its grove?

Answer 10

• division of Italy into:
  a) northern monarchy in the south, and
  b) Republican city-states to the North
• monarchy: relationships vertical, hierarchical
• city-states: relationships horizontal, at least among the elite
• these differences prove remarkably durable

Question 11

Criticisms of Putnam: Italy

Answer 11

1) Norman rule - why so different and its effects in England?
2) The dark side of social capital - equally characteristic of criminal gangs (bonding versus bridging social capital)
3) where is fascism and Putnam’s Italy?
4) Italy’s southern problem - quasi-colonialism?
5) transmission - republics vanish, civicness endures over the centuries, but how?

Question 12

Criticisms of Putnam: USA

Answer 12

a) Italy: social capital lasted centuries - through wars, revolutions, nation information, economic crisises and democratization
b) USA: it was rapidly depleted due to the effects of….tv

Question 13

Communications and community

Answer 13

Can the new communications technologies rebuild community? Possibly, but:

a) we tend to limit contact to people like ourselves
b) electronic communications may lack the intimacy and sensitivity of face-to-face