Social CapitalISBN: 978-0-7456-2547-8
Hardcover
400 pages
December 2004, Polity
This is a Print-on-Demand title. It will be printed specifically to fill your order. Please allow an additional 10-15 days delivery time. The book is not returnable.
|
David Halpern provides a guide through the many and sometimes
confusing definitions of social capital. The various literatures
examining the empirical consequences of social capital are brought
together from across academic disciplines to demonstrate a
remarkable range of effects. A model is then presented to account
for the causal pathways that create social capital, and that lead
from social capital to its outcomes. International evidence is used
to establish whether social capital is on the decline, and the
thorny question of whether social capital can harm or exclude is
also examined. Finally, the policy implications are considered,
including how social capital can be measured, created and
utilized.
Social Capital offers an overview of one of the most important and exciting areas to emerge out of the social sciences in many years. It assumes no previous knowledge of the literature or statistics, and will be of interest to students and researchers in politics, sociology, social administration and social psychology and to the general reader interested in finding out more about how social capital affects all our lives.