Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation

Recent scholarship shows that social capital has a large influence on political behavior. Social capital’s definition includes trust, norms of reciprocity, and social networks. Most studies, however, ignore the networking component. Here, we test the influence of social networks on political participation using new Japanese survey data. We separately test the effects of involvement in formally organized voluntary associations and informal social networks. We also examine whether hierarchical networks have a different impact on participation than equal relationships. To determine if networks with bridging or bonding social capital affect participation differently, we also measure the openness to outsiders of these networks. Negative binomial regression models indicate a strong positive relationship between formal and informal social networking—including network hierarchy and some forms of openness—and political participation.     

传媒对大学生政治信任和社会信任的影响研究

基于对合肥市大学生的问卷调查,我们对媒体与大学生的信任关系进行了研究。结果发现,大学生印刷媒体的总体性使用对他们的政治信任有积极的影响,但网络媒体的总体性使用对他们的社会和政治信任的影响却是消极的。多年来,中国传媒研究者有关媒体政治、社会效果的研究,一直存在着媒体宣传动员效果和宣传回飞镖效应的争论,但本研究的发现既不完全支持前者。也不完全支持后者,我们还对相关的发现进行了讨论。     

Investigating the Roots of Civic Morality: Trust, Social Capital, and Institutional Performance

In the last decade considerable research in social sciences has focused on interpersonal trust, treating it as a remedy for most maladies modern democracies suffer from. Yet, if others act dishonestly, trust is turned into gullibility, thus mechanisms linking interpersonal trust with institutional success refer implicitly to honesty and civic morality. This paper investigates the roots of civic morality. It applies hierarchical models to data from 38 countries, and tests the individual, community and structural explanatory factors. The results of the analysis point to the relevance of an institutional dimension, both in the form of individuals’ perceptions as well as the quality of governance: confidence in political institutions and their objective quality are the strongest predictors of civic morality. At the same time, the findings show that the recently popular claims about the importance of social capital for citizens’ moral standards are largely unfounded.

Reconsidering the Effects of Bonding Social Capital: A Closer Look at Black Civil Society Institutions in America

Few studies consider how Putnam’s bridging and bonding social capital arguments apply to voluntary associations within American minority group communities. Consequently, I examine African-American civic groups to explore Putnam’s claims about the potential negative political effects of bonding social capital. In contrast to the bonding social capital thesis, I argue that black communal associations encourage African-Americans to be involved in a variety of mainstream civic and political activities that reach beyond their own group interests. Using the 1993–1994 National Black Politics Study I demonstrate that although black organizations are predominantly composed of African-Americans and work to advance their interests, these goals are not pursued at the expense of connecting blacks to others in the general polity.

政府创新：社会资本视角

社会资本理论是研究政府与公民、民主与信任等之间关系的一种新范式。布迪厄从微观层面上将社会资本概括为一种资源集合;科尔曼从中观层面上将社会资本概括为一种社会结构;帕特南从宏观层面上将社会资本概括为一种价值规范。从本质上讲,政府创新是一个政府与社会互动的过程,与社会资本之间存在内在的结构性关联。社会资本是政府创新的基本变量,其中的信任因素是政府创新合法性的重要来源,支持信念因素是政府创新的基本条件,参与网络因素是政府创新的重要基础。在社会资本视角下进行政府创新的途径在于加强社会制度建设,实现传统社会资本的现代转型;支持公民参与网络建设,培育公共精神和发展基层民主;培育第三部门力量,以转变政府职能和增强政府能力。     

Exploring Social Capital: as Concept and Practice in Australian Public Health Policies and Programs

Over the past twenty years interest has grown in the concept of social capital in international and Australian public policy. We explore how social capital is understood as a concept and used in practice for guiding policy development and program delivery in South Australian public health programs. The empirical research compared policy makers’ and practitioners’ understandings of social capital and how theories about social capital and health inequality were translated into practice in three case study projects. It found that there are shifting discourses between social capital and related concepts, including community capacity building, and social inclusion/exclusion. Policy makers reported less use of the concept of social capital in favour of social inclusion/exclusion reflecting changing political and policy environments where terms come into favour and then go out of fashion. In this transition period the two terms are often used interchangeably although there are some conceptual points of difference.     

社会资本与社会组织运转——以甘东用水协会为例

促进人们之间相互合作有三种机制——科层、市场和自组织.三种机制在官僚成本、交易成本与结社成本低的情况下都能很好地促进民众之间的合作,但是在缺少社会资本的地方,随着三种成本的上升,合作机制可能都会导致不合作行为的发生.根据对中国目前唯一的整体实行参与式灌溉管理改革并取得成功的中型灌区——甘东用水协会进行实地调研,从协会在现实中所遇到的用水户合作困境出发,针对甘东用水协会内用水户为什么不积极参与和自己利益密切相关的社会组织的建设这个问题,从科层影子、扭曲市场和公民社会缺乏三个方面对甘东用水协会困境进行了分析.得出:政府或者其他外部机构在社会资本缺乏、市场机制难以奏效的地方建立用水协会这类社会组织,要想实现其可持续发展,必须使其脱离科层控制;而且政府或者外部机构在投资方向上也要更加侧重于促进地方社会资本增加的项目,而不是用时髦的、现代的、复杂的组织或者设备来简单代替原来的基础设施.     

父母的社会地位与社会资本——家庭因素对大学生就业意愿的影响

本文根据地位结构观和网络结构观的视角,基于定量的研究方法验证了父母的社会地位与社会资本对大学生求职意愿的影响。主要发现包括,父母的社会地位与社会资本对大学生就业意愿的影响存在显著差异;父母的社会资本对于大学生"从政"意愿影响显著;父母的社会地位对于大学生"入企"意愿影响显著;家庭收入越高,大学生"入企"意愿越高;父亲教育水平越高,家庭社会网络异质性越大,大学生继续深造的意愿越高。     

Social Capital and the Dynamics of Trust in Government

It is well understood that trust in government responds to the performance of the president, Congress, and the economy. Despite improved government performance, however, trust has never returned to the levels witnessed in the 1950s and 1960s. Social capital may be the force that has kept trust low. If so, we need to assess the relative contributions of both government performance and social capital at the macro level. Using macrolevel data, the analysis, here, is designed to capture the variation over time in both social capital and government performance and let them compete to explain the macro variation in trust. The empirical results demonstrate that both government performance and social capital matter, but that social capital appears to be the force which accounts for the decline in trust over the last 40 years.     

School Choice and the Creation of Social Capital Reexamined

Scholars have argued that by spurring parental involvement in school activities, school choice creates social capital. While government policies may be able to create social capital, we doubt that school choice is such a policy and argue that participation in school activities is largely determined by individual-level attributes and the school context, rather than choice per se. To assess this claim we use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data. Unlike most school choice studies, this data set has a large, representative national sample. More importantly, the panel structure of the data allows us to examine the same parents both before and after the school choice decision has been made, permitting a true dynamic analysis. The results demonstrate that actively choosing a child's school does not make parents more likely to participate in school activities. Some institutional attributes of schools do appear to increase parental involvement in school activities, however.     

A Tale of Two Towns: Assessing the Role of Political Resources in a Community Electronic Network

In this study we examine responses to the recent expansion of information technology in two rural Minnesota towns. One of these towns took a cooperative approach to technology access, developing a community electronic network, while the other town relied on a more individualistic, entrepreneurial model. The present study examines citizens' attitudes concerning social, political, and technological issues in these two communities, with the goal of uncovering what kinds of attitudes and resources citizens need to have in order to help support and sustain a community electronic network. Structural equation modeling is used to specify the relationships among individuals' economic, political, and social resources, technology ownership and use, and awareness of and support for the community network. Drawing on a theory of social capital, we consider the relative importance of privately- oriented social engagement versus publicly- oriented political engagement in relation to collective outcomes. Our analysis shows that in the town with the broadly- based community electronic network, individuals' political as well as economic resources are linked to knowledge and use of computer resources, whereas in the comparison community, economic stratification alone drives computer access. The implications of these findings for issues of equity, access to technology, and the development of strong community ties are discussed.     

Bridging the Ideological Divide: Trust and Support for Social Security Privatization

Using a pair of national surveys, this article analyzes the individual-level sources of public support for Social Security privatization. Given the inherent risks associated with privatization, we argue that the political trust heuristic affords untapped theoretical leverage in explaining public attitudes toward privatization. We find that, among certain individuals, political trust plays an instrumental role in structuring privatization preferences. Political trust increases support for privatization, but only among liberals. This heterogeneity in trust’s impact is best explained, we argue, by the unbalanced ideological costs imposed by the potential privatization of Social Security. Among liberals, embracing privatization requires the sacrifice of core values, thereby making political trust a potent consideration. Political trust is inconsequential among conservatives because supporting privatization requires no comparable sacrifice for them.

Restoring community through traditional neighborhood design: A case study of Diggs town public housing

Abstract

This article examines how traditional neighborhood design (TND) can restore a sense of community to distressed neighborhoods. Traditional neighborhoods, such as those found in many cities and inner suburbs, provide their residents numerous opportunities and venues for social interaction. We apply the principles of TND to the redesign of a public housing project. We call our approach an “architecture of engagement.”

Using a case study of Diggs Town, a public housing project in Norfolk, VA, we explore how the application of TND principles transformed a socially alienated and distressed neighborhood into a socially integrated and functional one. We find that TND techniques improve the quality of life by facilitating the social exchanges that create social capital.     

社区残疾人保障的现状分析与政策建议

残疾人社会保障离不开社区,社区是残疾人社会保障的重要载体。从社区残疾人保障的主要内容出发,分析了现阶段我国社区残疾人保障存在的问题,并在此基础上提出了完善社区残疾人保障的几点建议:建立完善的社区残疾人保障的组织管理机制是推进社区残疾人保障的首要环节;大力发展社区非营利组织是推进社区保障的依托;健全社区残疾人服务网络,培养专业的社区残疾人工作队伍是发展社区残疾人保障的必要保证。     

Codetermination and the market for corporate control in the European Community

In the process of European integration the member states have agreed to transfer substantial jurisdiction in the areas of economic and monetary policy to the European Community. In industrial relations, however, they have refused to make similar concessions. Despite its numerous attempts the Commission of the EC has not as yet been able to secure the political consensus necessary for a European model of employees' participation and codetermination. In the context of the Single European Market the national systems of codetermination are destined to play a decreasing role. With the continuing development of the single market and its interlocking business structures across national borders, regulations on codetermination that extend only up to such borders and no further can be expected to lose in significane. This paper traces the history of codetermination in the European Community. It also analyses the reasons why the various directives and regulations drafted by the EC Commission since 1967 have been rejected by the Council of Ministers.     

可追溯机制的逻辑与运用——公共治理中的信息、风险与信任要素分析

可追溯机制在食品质量和药品安全的公共治理中逐渐浮出水面,成为2007年流行的治理模式创新.这一机制主要是一个信息记录的体系,包括了生产者、流通者、消费者和政府监管者四方面要素在内.形成了一个产品循环的网络图.这一机制就是要建立全方位的信息跟踪机制,以产品质量电子监管网为基本栽体,及时追溯每个产品的产地、时间以及其他各方面的信息,一旦出现质量和安全问题, 可以及时追溯主要责任人,让该责任人来承担相关责任.该机制的逻辑是以信息、风险和信任三大要素为基础,并根据这三大要素建立起相应的信息风险责任机制.这一机制对地下市场的治理也有着重要作用.     

首都体制的内涵和特点探究

首都体制是保障首都职能有效运行的城市管理机构、制度、机制和习惯意识的总称。中国古代的首都体制,是以中央政府直接管理为主、地方政府民事管理为辅的体制。当代中国首都体制的进步体现在:地方政府具有完整的管理权,形成了相应的体制、机制与首都意识,但首都重大问题的决策常具有中庸特色。     

西部高校毕业生求职难度影响因素的实证研究——基于社会资本、人力资本与物质资本的比较研究及其交互效应

本研究旨在考察社会资本、人力资本与物质资本及其交互变量对高校毕业生求职难度的影响。实证分析发现:社会资本、人力资本与物质资本对高校毕业生职业获得难度存在显著的影响。在搜寻成本模型中,社会资本同人力资本的交互项对高校毕业生在求职过程中的搜寻成本存在正向影响,即社会资本欠缺者,可以通过提升人力资本以降低搜寻成本;在求职结果模型中,社会资本同人力资本的交互项对高校毕业生的最终求职结果存在负向影响,即社会资本欠缺者,可以通过提升人力资本以提高求职成功的概率,从而降低求职难度。     

Social Capital and Public Policy – The Current Challenge Facing the Victorian Government

Social capital, since Putnam's 1993 work, has captured the imagination of policy‐makers the world over, and Australia is no exception. In 2005 the Department of Victorian Communities launched its Actions for Community Strengthening policy statement, which draws heavily on social capital theory. This article explores the theoretical underpinnings of the government's policy and critiques its failure to deal adequately with the causal relationship between social capital and its supposed community benefits. The article then seeks to isolate the missing factors through a look at recent research on volunteerism and argues that the institution of collaborative/interactive governance needs to be underpinned by sound socio‐economic reform.     

社会资本与拆迁户维权行动——基于GS镇SJ街房屋拆迁的个案研究

本文借鉴"过程-事件分析"的研究策略,以GS镇SJ街房屋拆迁为个案,通过详细描述SJ街拆迁户维权行动的事件始末,考察拆迁户为了维护切身利益采取的行动策略,并运用社会资本理论,重点分析在维权行动中拆迁户如何整合已有社会资源,建构新的维权社会资本,最终促成维权行动的成功。