The term social capital is a way of conceptualizing the intangibleresources of community shared values and trust upon which we draw in dailylife. It has achieve... » 

The term social capital is a way of conceptualizing the intangibleresources of community shared values and trust upon which we draw in dailylife. It has achieved considerable currency in the social sciences through thevery different work of Bourdieu in France and James Coleman and Robert Putnamin the States and has been taken up within politics and sociology as a meansof explaining the decline of social cohesion and community values in manyWestern societies.This concise introduction the only one currently available explains thetheoretical underpinning of the subject the empirical work that has been doneto explore its operation and the effect that it has had on policymakingparticularly within such international governmental bodies as the World Bankand the European Commission. With genuine crossdisciplinary appeal thisexceptional book will be of great interest to students of sociology politicsand social policy. «