The social capital of the World Bank

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 57-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Lošťák

In relation to sustainable rural development, the paper starts with the question of its conditions. One of them is social acceptance of various projects or programmes. This issue is joined with the co-ordination of human activities. The mechanism facilitating the co-ordination in contemporary societies is related to social capital. Its concept is outlined through the references to the basic literature about the topic. Using content analysis, based on the quantification of the categories created through the analysis of the literature about the topic, the social capital in selected municipalities is investigated. The main aim of the paper, however, is to show the role of this method in social capital fast identification. Although the approach necessitates further elaboration, it can be considered as the first important step in the practice of development activities. The background of the paper reflects the challenges of the World Bank concerning the elaboration and development of the new methods of measuring social capital.


2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 224-240
Author(s):  
Ravi Bhandari ◽  
Ben Fine

In parallel with, and as complement to globalisation, social capital has enjoyed a meteoric rise in Sociology and across the social sciences in general over the last two decades. Not surprisingly, it has been particularly prominent across development studies, not least through heavy promotion by the World Bank. As a concept, though, as has been pointed out persistently by a minority critical literature, social capital is fundamentally lawed. Although capable of addressing almost anything designated as social, it has tended to neglect the state, class, power and conflict. As a buzzword, it has heavily constrained the currently progressive departure from the extremes of neo-liberalism and postmodernism at a time of aggressive assault by economics imperialism. Social capital should not be ignored but contested – and rejected. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hjsa.v4i0.4676 Himalayan Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol.IV (2010) 224-240


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-55
Author(s):  
László Török

Until the recent past economists identified the assets of a nation as the sum of material assets, humán and social capital. However they found, that the differences of the calculated national assets are not proportional to the welfare of the citizens of the compared countries, therefore they looked for further explanatory variables. The specialists of the World Bank according to the results of their research identified an invisible resource, which is the institutional system of the country. Present study examines ten Hungárián institutional components from the aspect of their value and examines how they are contributing to national assets, hereby how they serve the interest of social welfare.


Author(s):  
Jane Jenson

In the mid-1990s, the practice of international organizations began to cohere around the social investment perspective, with strategies that were child-centred and advocated human capital investments for economic growth and social development. This chapter examines the World Bank, which endorsed the policy instrument of conditional cash transfers (CCT) to allow very poor families to invest in children’s health and education—a stock-plus-buffer strategy. Then it scans the OECD, which recommended early childhood education to ensure human capital development and the labour-market activation of parents—a stock-plus-flow strategy. Both organizations developed anti-poverty positions with attention to the intergenerational transfer of disadvantage and investments in human capital. This similarity has declined in recent years, as the World Bank incorporated the social investment perspective into its new inclusive growth frame, while the OECD turned its attention to problems of inequality rather than poverty and thereby associated itself less with the social investment perspective.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 144-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Phillipson

Debates on globalisation have become an important area within the social sciences. The purpose of this chapter is to extend this discussion to the study of ageing and in particular the field of critical gerontology. Some of the concerns here include issues around inequality and social divisions running through the life course. These are being changed and influenced in new ways by the political and economic changes associated with globalisation. The argument of the paper is that globalisation brings forth a new set of actors and institutions influencing the social construction of public policy for old age. Some of the themes covered in this paper include the rise of transnational bodies such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, problems affecting people in the developing world, the acceleration of global migration in various forms, and changes in the nature of citizenship and citizen-rights. The chapter concludes by setting out the case for an ‘age- sensitive’ globalisation that can provide an effective challenge to new forms of inequality and exclusion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-516
Author(s):  
Margherita Brunori

AbstractThe World Bank has reviewed its environmental and social policies at a moment of intense production of international instruments dealing with land tenure, all of which take the form of soft law. This endeavour is motivated by the progressive acknowledgement of the importance of secure and equitable access to land for the realization of human rights and food security. The latest contribution of the World Bank to this debate is of great significance. This article aims to unveil the effects that the new Environmental and Social Framework is likely to generate in this context. It analyses the protection of access to land and security of tenure contained in the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Standards in light of the developments occurring at the international level. To this end, the article reviews the changes to the standards in the context of the social impacts when a lending project affects land holders or users directly or indirectly; addresses the mechanisms for protecting, compensating and improving livelihood opportunities for those affected by the projects; and comments on the safeguarding of indigenous peoples’ lands. The article finds that the World Bank, by incorporating some of these emerging standards, has confirmed the relevance of emerging principles and guidelines on land, even if they are contained in non-binding instruments. On a critical note, the article recognizes the refusal of the World Bank to adopt the underlying discourse and fully embrace human rights achievements in the context of land issues.


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