GOVT1107 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Communes Of France, Civil Society, Social Capital
Document Summary
Week 12: week 12: civil society and social capital (oct. 19) Robert d. putnam, what makes democracy work? national civic review 82, no. Using putnam"s parable of the sower, for a political scientist the soils in which these identical organisations were implanted were very different-economic stages, religion, governments worked differently. Some regions were characterised by a dense network of civic associations and an active culture of civic engagement whereas other were characterised by vertical patron-client relations of exploitation and dependence not horizontal collaboration among equals. Social and political networks organised in horizontally civic communities democracy works-thus the correlation between choral societies and effective government is perfect. Communities are wealthy because they have choral societies that practise engagement, trust, reciprocity. Human capaital: investing in training-human capital enables one to become more productive. To retivalise our democracy we shall need to rebuild social capital in our communities and civil connections.