My+Notes+(PC)

toc =General Notes=
 * Political culture might have impacts on political structures. For instance I&W talks about the relation between democracy, modernization & culture. Coleman talks about social capital and how it is used in different way (information potential/norms and effective sanctions/authority relations/appropriate social organizations/international organizations). Putnam looks at the different forms and decrease of social capital. Lastly Jackman & Ross looks at it as an endogenous variable. In other words, economic and political realities create the current social capital which is then subject to change as economic and political conditions change.
 * One thing we should not forget is Weber's modernization theory. He linked, for instance, protestant culture with capitalism. Society's cultural heritage had something to do.
 * Mass democracy is impossible without a certain amount of economic development plus culture.
 * Also, duration of democracy has a lot to do with the durability of the democracy.
 * Modernization theory predicts a connection between socioeconomic status and the emergence of democracy. (intermediary variable is self-expression)
 * Political culture signals number of values: faith in public institutions etc.
 * Three distinct approaches emphasize three different aspects of mass culture as being most conducive to democracy
 * Legitimacy: Institutional confidence and support for democracy
 * Communitarian: Norm conformity, association activity and interpersonal trust
 * Human development: Self-expression values, mass orientation,
 * There are different conceptualizations of social capital.
 * I&W: Social capital is a culture of trust and tolerance.
 * Putnam: People are deserting old organizations.
 * Bonding (closed nature of in-groups) Bridging (generalized, interpersonal trust)
 * Putnam: in-person social intercourse
 * But let's not forget about computer-mediated communication
 * Coleman: Here we go with the idea of social capital into a general, coherent theory of social relations
 * Social relationships come into existence when individuals attempt to make best use of their individual resources.
 * All 'social capital' has two characteristics: (i) they all consist of some aspect of a social structure and (ii) they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure.
 * Two elements are critical to social capital: (i) the level of trustworthiness of the social environment and (ii) the actual extent of obligations held.
 * Rational actors create obligations because (i) anxious to repay favors (ii) insurance policy
 * Jackman and Miller: There are two contending apporaches of social theory
 * Exogenous: durable cultural norms drive political and economic performance
 * Endogenous: social capital is an outcome of social and political arrangements.
 * Still, certain institutions can help create social capital.

=Reading Citations=

I&W > for authority, religious faith, national pride, obedience, work ethic, large families with > strong family ties, a clear sense of good and evil, and respect for parents. > high trust in science and technology, faith in the state (bureaucratization), rejection > of out-groups, appreciation of money, hard work, and determination; and a belief that > women need children and children need both parents. > emphasis on individual responsibility and decision-making, imagination, tolerance, > life balance and satisfaction, ecology, leisure, free choice, and good health.
 * //The poor nations// have traditional values focused on survival needs, including respect
 * //The middle-income nations// have modern values focused on achievement, including
 * //The rich nations// have postmodern values focused on self-expression, including an

The book sets out to integrate socioeconomic development, cultural change, and democratization under the overarching theme of human development. What is exciting in this book is their taking a position on a causal relationship, an advance over early work that merely posited a relationship. Clearly, as the survey and analysis has gone on, Inglehart has become more confident in what the data is saying and has been making bolder assertions.

Their data suggests that socioeconomic modernization, a cultural shift toward rising emphasis on self-expression values, and democratization are all components of a single underlying process: human development. And the core of the human development sequence is the expansion of human choice and autonomy.

Economic change => Cultural change => Political change (existential security) => (self-expression values) => (democratic institutions)

What about future? How can we use future? Well here we go: He creates a predictive model of a country’s values based on two modernization factors: • real per capita GDP five years before the survey • the percentage of the labor force employed in given sectors and two historical heritage factors: • how many years of communist rule the society experienced • a constant for each of the eight cultural zones that reflects the extent to which that zone’s cultural heritage causes it to deviate from simple economic-historical determinism Shortly speaking, we are looking at a transition from //survival (agriculture)// to //secular-rational(industrial)// and eventually to //self-expression(post-industrial).// Because we no longer have the fear about basic survival, moreover creativity and autonomy are rewarded. This culture is not totally dependent on economic factors, nations do shape their educational and cultural institutions. We should not forget the difference between formal and effective democracy.

Coleman talks about the foundation of social capital. He claims that society is not a collection of selfish individuals. There is the social interdependence and systemic functioning. These concepts arise because one actor has an interest in something that another actor controls.

Coleman (p.304) Social capital is created when the relations among persons change in ways that facilitate action. A nice metaphor is actors have a network of credit slips that they can cash in for favors later on. (It is also kinda of an insurance policy)


 * **Information potential:** One actor provides information to another (information facilitates action)
 * **Norms and effective sanctions:** Norms can be a powerful form of social capital.
 * **Authority relations:** US protecting other nations for instance
 * **Appropriate social organizations:** An organization brought to being to facilitate social capital exchange
 * **International organizations:** can create public good or social capital

There can be an open or closed network.

Jackman and Ross are talking about how social capital should be treated as an endogenous variable. Economic and political realities create current capital but might change. Social capital is not timeless, cultural. It is the obligations and expectations, and the information flow capability of the social structure, and norms accompanied by sanctions.


 * Putnam, Fukuyama, and Inglehart** all emphasize the trust and social networks that are a part of social capital.

Why don't the authors like the recent work on social capital? - Putnam says social capital "improves the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions" - Fukuyama says that trust is necessary in order to have good economic performances and growth. - Harrison says that "political and economic development depend on values involving trust, ethical codes, and orientations to work and risk-taking" - Inglehart says "that trust and membership in voluntary associations are strongly linked with stable democracy and the shifts to democracy between 1990 and 1995" - Weber and Protestant ethics - Almond and Verba claim that certain social attributes are better at creating democracy.

But but but but all of these accounts assume that (1) there is such a thing as a coherent value cluster within societies and (2) culture is durable (3) social capital is therefore an exogenous varuable.

Endogenous treatment of social capital key faults: (1) research design problems of temporal ordering (2) the measures of social capital are biased. -- Putnam talks about how engagement in traditional groups are decreasing. p.19 Social networks have value, social networks and norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arse from them Social capital is an extension of individualism vs. community debate. Americans might be engaging in more small groups, social movements, and computer mediated communication. The environmental movements might be an exception (or conservative groups) The new trend in social engagement: thin, single-stranded, surf-by interactions are gradually replacing dense, multi-stranded, well-exercised bonds (p.184)

Why? Change in family structure, race, big government, big business, time and money pressures, suburbanization, electronic entertainment, generational change

Social capital helps - resolve collective problems more easily (p.288) - makes community advancement easier - widens our awareness of the many ways in which our fates are linked - contributes to psychological and biological processes

Perils of social capital: - groupthink? - conformity? - tolerance? - solidarity at cost of freedom? - social capital with equality?