Operationalizing Social Capital: A Strategy to Enhance Communities'"Capacity to Concert"

This article addresses a concern increasingly being voiced in the donor establishment: fifty years of development assistance programs have failed to produce conclusive evidence that they can foster sustainable economic and social development in poor countries. The nature of donor programs is such that it emphasizes economic remedies and orients aid to finite projects. Yet recent evidence suggests that sustained development may be more a continued civic process whereby communities form their capacity to come to their own understandings about public ways of behaving and relating, whereby they develop their capacity to concert . This translates into a practical capability to pinpoint underlying problems, assess alternative approaches, and devise solutions most likely to be sustained. This micro capability may also have important macroeconomic implications in terms of institutional predictability and—through it—in terms of scale economies, transaction costs, transparency, incentive to innovate, and climate to implement public policies. The article suggests an alternative approach to development assistance and offers concrete recommendations to donors.     

当前中国社会阶层分化对政治发展的推动作用

当前中国社会阶层的构成多元化特征为公民政治参与的扩大准备了重要条件,推动着我国的民主化和法制化进程,并且,中国社会阶层分化的总趋势是有利于政治稳定的。适应中国社会阶层分化的趋势,采取有效措施,方能推进中国政治的发展。     

论莱茵模式的合理性及发展走向

莱茵模式是社会市场经济的最新称呼，它的基本内涵是强调效率与公平的有机统一、竞争与秩序的有机结合以及互助合作理念。从莱茵模式的内涵看，它在经济和社会方面都具有一定的合理性。虽然全球化背景下莱茵模式遭到了一定的挑战，但研究莱茵模式的合理性对构建市场经济模式无疑具有一定的启示和借鉴作用。     

群体性事件的社会学思考

群体性事件是重大社会性事件,参与群体性事件人员的成分复杂,表现方式日趋激烈,组织化程度不断提高,处置难度进一步加大,在一定程度上影响了我国的社会稳定,必须引起高度重视。     

浅析社区青少年的社会交往网络与社会支持网络——对上海市普陀区社区青少年的调查研究

根据2006年对上海市普陀区“社区青少年”发展状况调查的实验研究管理,对易于“边缘化”的“社区青少年”的社会交往网络与社会支持网络的构成、特征进行分析,并探讨如何促进它们之间的优势互补,从而为“社区青少年”的发展提供更好的条件。     

“两种利益不一致”问题的经济学分析

个人利益和社会利益一致是一个非常理想的社会目标,但在现实的社会生活中,二者之间的不一致却是常态。市场经济条件下二者之间不一致的原因在于:机会主义性质的追求自我利益最大化;经济活动的外部性;没有建立和实施有效的所有权。二者之间不一致将导致社会经济效率的降低和经济增长的停滞。解决该问题有福利经济学和新制度经济学两种思路。     

社会资本：政治文明建设不可缺少的社会资源

社会资本是政治文明建设不可缺少的社会资源，对于政治意识文明、政治制度文明、政治行为文明的发展都有极大的促进作用。     

论我国社会事业家的培育

当前我国呈个体化分布的社会事业家正积极地从全能主义体制内拓展公民社会领域,以创新精神和能力推动着我国的社会转型。对社会事业家的培育既需要政府的主导,也需要民间组织自身的努力。具体路径是:应顺应和完善社会发展动机;消除制度障碍,营造能促性环境;逐渐创造完整的角色认同模式和道德倡导循环。     

我国民间组织在建构和谐社会中的社会功能探析1

本文从和谐社会的内涵出发,分析了民间组织具有的优势,在界定了我国民间组织的定义和特征的基础上,从社会学的角度探讨了我国民间组织在促进社会和谐发展中所发挥的社会功能和所承担的社会角色,并指出了当前民间组织社会功能的发挥对建构和谐社会的重要性。     

The Trap

A professor is brought before a secret tribunalin his law faculty for the purpose of decidingthe appropriateness of a student's grade. Thegrounds of the grade appeal are that theprofessor had taught critically instead ofpractically and that he had done so with anacademic bias and prejudice. He is also allegedto have taught philosophy rather than law. After many hours of examination andcross-examination as a defendant and as anexpert witness, the professor, Flink, begins adialogue with a spirit in an effort tounderstand the nature and identity of law. Flink comes to appreciate that law is adisplacing discourse rather than a structure ofcategories signified in an official writing. The analytic method familiar to officials incommon law jurisdictions, Flink comes tounderstand, excludes the experiential meaningsthat are manifested through unwritten gesturesand rituals. Officials embody signs withexperiential expectations and past assumptions.The embodiment of meaning brings life intolegal language. But such an embodiment isforgotten as officials decompose textualfragments and reported social events intoanalytic units. Legal analysis is so successfulthat officials even forget that they hadforgotten something so important as theembodiment of meaning.The professor and the spirit also ask whetherjustice is an `ought' and where one can locatesuch an `ought'. They conclude that there is astructure within which legal officials reason.The exteriority of the structure is anunwritten `ought' realm. But the structurepossesses a gap, which enters into such anunanalysable object-less realm. Analyticreasoning has assumed that reason can take anofficial only so far until she or he mustjourney outside the structure to anunanalysable realm of personal values. However, the embodiment of meanings alsoincorporates unwritten collective values ofwhich officials, precisely because of thesuccess of the analysis project in forgettingthat something was forgotten, have never beenconscious. It is such an unanalysable realmthat grounds or authorises the analyticproject. The exterior authorising origin of theanalytic units of the structure rests upon apossibility that requires faith on the part ofthe officials, a faith that there exists afoundation, radically different from theanalytic units, on the other side of thestructure. The officials can, at best, imagineor picture the authorising origin, located asit is in the unanalysable object-less realmexterior to the written language of thestructure. The imagined origin takes the `form'of a bodiless spirit. The officials (and theprofessor and spirit) are haunted by thepossibility that the structure of humanlyposited rules are ultimately authorised by aspirit.