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No 2009:137:
Social Capital in Emerging Democracies
Edward LiPuma
and
Thomas A. Koelble
Additional contact information
Edward LiPuma: University of Miami, Postal: Department of Anthropology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA
Thomas A. Koelble: University of Cape Town, Postal: Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
Abstract: Theorists have linked the creation of social capital to the development of the kind of robust civil society that underwrites the well formed and stable democracy. This understanding raises the problem of what is social capital in specific national contexts. A critical issue is whether and to what extent a model of social capital moulded to the EuroAmerican experience is applicable to the new democracies. Three arguments are made in the context of a review of the works of Putnam and Touraine. First, the question of social capital foundationally concerns not only the production of institutions and values but the conditions of production. Analysis thus needs to grasp not only the specifically social process of its creation, distribution, and institutionalization, but the political culture and economy that serve as its foundation. Second, theories of social capital created in the context of nation-state based production-centered political economy do not capture what is going on in an increasingly globalized and circulatory political economy. And third, theories of social capital centered on the United States and Europe are only partially applicable to the emerging democracies of Africa and the postcolony generally.
Keywords: Social capital; Democratization; Global capitalism; Civil society; Postcolony; South Africa
Language: English
14 pages, 2009
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