Suchergebnisse

Introduces an issue devoted to articles based on papers prepared for a Conference on Measuring Democracy held at Stanford University in May 1988. Whilst the conference did not attempt to reach any formal consensus, presents a summing of 7 conclusions that can be drawn. (SJK)

EXAMINES THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY INTERDED INDENT AND INTERCONNECTED AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH THIS REPRESENTS TE EMERGENCE OF A COHERENT, INTEGRATED WORLD SOCIAL SYSTEM. LOOKS AT A WIDE RANGE OF MEASURES OF BOTH INTERDEPENDENCE AND INTERCONNECTEDNESS AND CONCLUDES THAT WHILE WORLD INTERCONNECTEDNESS IS SOARING, INTERDEPENDENCE HAS'T INCREASED MUCH.

If social capital is understood to be a resource that can facilitate the attainment of a community's goals, then it may be searched for in its institutions, in its patterns of culture, in its modes of communication & association, or in its shared psychosocial characteristics, as expressed in qualities such as trust, cooperativeness, or initiative. This paper focuses on the latter expressions of social capital, & especially on efforts to measure its presence in large-scale national populations. Evidence from Hofstede's sample of 40 nations shows that the average strength of "individualism" in each national population was strongly correlated with measures of income equality & press freedom; & from Inglehart's sample of more than 40 nations that when positive social values such as trust are widely shared, they produce desirable features of social organization such as economic growth & stable democratic government. The paper considers how far such psychosocial characteristics of national populations are stable or variable. It concludes with a discussion of the uses policymakers make of these distinctive elements of social capital. 16 References. Adapted from the source document.