Search results

The purpose of this paper is to find theoretical and practical linkages between social capital, network and community participation. The study examines the role of popular social capital and its forms in shaping community participation under the influence of socioeconomic status of individuals.

The paper uses household survey data (N = 135) from select north Indian villages to assess the role of social capital and individuals’ networks (measured through their network size) in participation. The participation is measured in terms of attendance and vocal participation.

The study finds significant evidence that the networks do not play a uniform role in collective participation. The elitist form of social capital exists in the community which can leverage the networks to their benefit, whereas many people, despite large network size, cannot actively participate. Social capital and networks are not entirely conducive for collective participation and favours a few in the community. Additionally, networks do facilitate information flow but do not help in achieving active engagement. Hence, the peer effect is not truly reflected in vocal participation all the time, especially in local governance context.

The conclusion of the study is based on small sample size from seven villages. Nonetheless, in light of the supporting literature available, it provides useful insights and triggers important questions that need microscopic analysis under the macroscopic umbrella of social capital.

On policy fronts, takeaway from this paper can be used for policy and law formulation for lower strata of the society such as labour law formulation and labour behavioural practices in community participation.

The research findings can be utilized for the emerging applications of social networks in understanding local governance and community engagement in developing societies.

This research has used a novel field experiment conducted by one of the authors himself. The empirical assessment of social capital and networks in local governance can be replicated elsewhere to study participation in other societies as well. In terms of policy, the research underscores the need of using social capital notion while assessing the community engagement in local governance.

The research community currently employs four very different versions of the social network concept: A social network is seen as a set of socially constructed role relations (e.g., friends, business partners), a set of interpersonal sentiments (e.g., liking, trust), a pattern of behavioral social interaction (e.g., conversations, citations), or an opportunity structure for exchange. Researchers conventionally assume these conceptualizations are interchangeable as social ties, and some employ composite measures that aim to capture more than one dimension. Even so, important discrepancies often appear for non-ties (as dyads where a specific role relation or sentiment is not reported, a specific form of interaction is not observed, or exchange is not possible).

Investigating the interplay across the four definitions is a step toward developing scope conditions for generalization and application of theory across these domains.

This step is timely because emerging tools of computational social science – wearable sensors, logs of telecommunication, online exchange, or other interaction – now allow us to observe the fine-grained dynamics of interaction over time. Combined with cutting-edge methods for analysis, these lenses allow us to move beyond reified notions of social ties (and non-ties) and instead directly observe and analyze the dynamic and structural interdependencies of social interaction behavior.

This unprecedented opportunity invites us to refashion dynamic structural theories of exchange that advance “beyond networks” to unify previously disjoint research streams on relationships, interaction, and opportunity structures.

Bond rating studies have received and continue to receive considerable attention in the literature on government finance. This study focuses on two major issues of municipal bond ratings that occupy the center-stage of these discussions: What charac-teristics does a rating institution analyze when assigning rating to a government? How significant are these characteristics in predicting the ratings given by these institutions? Using a combination of economic, financial, and demographic factors, the study reexamines these questions on a select group of cities.

President Bill Clinton has had many opponents and enemies, most of whom come from the political right wing. Clinton supporters contend that these opponents, throughout the Clinton presidency, systematically have sought to undermine this president with the goal of bringing down his presidency and running him out of office; and that they have sought non‐electoral means to remove him from office, including Travelgate, the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, the Filegate controversy, and the Monica Lewinsky matter. This bibliography identifies these and other means by presenting citations about these individuals and organizations that have opposed Clinton. The bibliography is divided into five sections: General; “The conspiracy stream of conspiracy commerce”, a White House‐produced “report” presenting its view of a right‐wing conspiracy against the Clinton presidency; Funding; Conservative organizations; and Publishing/media. Many of the annotations note the links among these key players.

Purpose – While important changes have been made in the American workplace, gender inequality persists. Contemporary analyses of occupational segregation suggest that gendered roles and identities may be playing a role, yet few studies explicitly tackle the effects of occupational identity on female disadvantage at work. Moreover, most previous research ignores the structured, multidimensionality of occupational identity focusing on more overt one-dimensional forms of status differentiation. Using sociological work as a case, these analyses delineate how occupational identities contribute to and differentiate publication success – and thus status hierarchies – for men and women in the sociological field.Findings – Net of human capital, results demonstrate the pronounced effect of the structure of occupational identity on publication: An often hidden form of job-queuing, occupational identities are gendered and influence the publication process. Differential rewards based on subtly gendered distinctions prove an important source of persistent inequalities.Social implications – While gender alone may not directly influence publication in premier research journals for more recent cohorts of sociologists, the gendered nature of research specialization and the distribution of rewards based, in part, on specialization present a troubling, more subtle stratifying mechanism.Originality/value of the chapter – This chapter contributes to our understanding of the puzzling pertinence of gender inequality in the academy by pinpointing how the organization of research into specialties is gendered and how this gendering of research affects important outcomes, such as publication. The paper also contributes to our broader understanding of inequality at work as an example of how occupational identity is multidimensional and networked.

This paper uses the Missouri Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 budget as a case study to illustrate two aspects of the recent state budgetary problems: its structural budget deficits and the politics involved in balancing a budget. The paper also highlights the dilemma that government faces in meeting constant public demand for services while revenue sources are restrained.

In a world where commerce and culture are still somewhat estranged, the purpose of this paper is to show that high culture’s supreme exponents were commercially minded masters of marketing.

Historically situated, the paper adopts a biographical approach to the making of modernism’s literary masterworks. It focuses on Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and James Joyce, who were responsible for the modernist classics, Ulysses and The Waste Land.

The analysis identifies five fundamental marketing principles that appear paradoxical from a traditional, customer-centric standpoint, yet are in accord with latter-day, post-Kotlerite conceptualisations. The marketing of modernism did not rely on “modern” marketing.

If, at the height of the anti-bourgeois modernist movement, the “great divide” between elite and popular culture was bridged by marketing, there is no reason why contemporary culture and commerce cannot collaborate, co-operate, co-exist, coalesce.

The paper complements prior studies of “painterpreneurs”, by drawing attention to the marketing of literary masterworks.

As the result of the increased postal rates and costs of production caused by the war, the Subscription Rates and Sales Prices of the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL have been raised as understated:—