scholarly journals Culture of (Dis)trust in Bulgaria: Anthropological Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 367-371
Author(s):  
Milena Benovska ◽  

The concept of social trust is located at the intersection of a broad field of meaning, including various theoretical tools in the social sciences: social capital, social networks, political power. It cannot be said that ethnology in Bulgaria has never studied socio-cultural phenomena in this light. Certainly, however, the work of Ana Luleva is the first systematic, competent, consistent and comprehensive study of the issue. In this sense, the book Culture of (dis) trust in Bulgaria: Anthropological Perspectives is not just innovative or makes a contribution. Undoubtedly it is, but more importantly, we have before us a serious and, I would say, a staged theoretical contribution in the field of social trust research. In itself, even just the introductory part of the work represents a serious theoretical effort.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beata Łopaciuk-Gonczaryk

A shortage of social capital may hinder sustainable development. According to the “social capital dream” there is a virtuous circle between participation in social networks, trust, and cooperation. It is a promising idea for proponents of sustainability, as it is easier to promote participation than affect social norms. Participation may, however, lead to particularized and not generalized trust, which hinders social inclusion and undermines the idea of a sustainable society. The aim of this paper is to validate the role of participation in informal and formal social networks in enhancing social trust and respect towards others. The relevance of both strong and weak ties is considered. Fixed-effects modeling on three-wave data from a Polish social survey is utilized. An increase in generalized trust corresponds with an increase in the acquaintances network, a decrease in the family and friends network, and an increase in volunteering. A rise in expectations about the cooperativeness of others is enhanced by an increase in the family and friends network, and by volunteering. The lack of respect for some groups of people is not affected by participation in organizations and informal networks. Overall within-person heterogeneity is small, suggesting that possibilities for fostering moral trust by participation are limited.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8641
Author(s):  
Nesrine Khazami ◽  
Zoltan Lakner

This study is aimed at examining the relationships between social capital, social motivation and functional competencies and their effects on the participation in the development of an agritourism business among Tunisian entrepreneurs who already have rural lodges in the agritourism sector in Tunisia. The authors applied structural modeling of the partial least squares equation to analyze 100 questionnaires completed by participants and test the hypotheses. The results showed positive and direct effects concerning the two variables, namely, the social capital and functional competencies on the participation in the development of a business in agritourism. On the other hand, the mediating role of social motivation between social capital and participation in the development of an agritourism business has shown an insignificant effect. This study creates a distinctive theoretical contribution to the literature on social entrepreneurial factors by analyzing the relationships between social capital, social motivation and functional competencies of an entrepreneur on participation in the development of a business in agritourism. In addition, this study investigates numerous practical implications of these results.


Author(s):  
Dhrubodhi Mukherjee

Social interaction technologies create communicative possibilities that go beyond dyadic interactions and across physical boundaries, bringing a qualitative shift in the functioning of the Internet. The present chapter employs social capital and social networks perspectives to identify the social determinants of virtual volunteering in the age of Web 2.0, explores the social motivation of volunteers who perform tasks using the Social Web in the context of online volunteering, and addresses the dynamic interplay of social capital, social networks, and the Social Web with implications for virtual volunteering. The argument furthered is that active participation in social networks generates social capital and facilitates the development of the Social Web.


2011 ◽  
pp. 1830-1840
Author(s):  
Dhrubodhi Mukherjee

Social interaction technologies create communicative possibilities that go beyond dyadic interactions and across physical boundaries, bringing a qualitative shift in the functioning of the Internet. The present chapter employs social capital and social networks perspectives to identify the social determinants of virtual volunteering in the age of Web 2.0, explores the social motivation of volunteers who perform tasks using the Social Web in the context of online volunteering, and addresses the dynamic interplay of social capital, social networks, and the Social Web with implications for virtual volunteering. The argument furthered is that active participation in social networks generates social capital and facilitates the development of the Social Web.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Rui Nan ◽  
Fan Ouyang

Social networks are social structure constituted by a set of social actors with embedded relationships, which has a significant impact on both perceptions and behaviors among individuals and groups. The influence of the social networks on citizens’ willingness to participate in social governance is manifested in two aspects: one is that social networks directly affects the citizens’ willingness to participate; the other is the social capital made up by social networks, social trust, and social norms affects the citizens’ willingness to participate. Drawing on a transprovincial survey regarding citizen participation in the social networks, this paper uses the Ordered Logistic model to explore how does social networks affect the citizens’ willingness to participate. The results show that (1) social networks have a significant impact on citizens’ willingness to participate in social governance, specifically, the stronger the social networks are, the higher level of the citizens’ willingness to participate will be; (2) social networks, together with social trust and social norms constitute social capital, and the social capital has a significant impact on the citizens’ willingness to participate in social governance, which is manifested; the higher the social capital stock is, the higher level of the citizens’ willingness to participate will be; and (3) from the lens of demographic characteristics, those who are male, high educated, CCP members, or from the eastern region of China are more willing to participate.


Author(s):  
Dominic Burbidge

Africa is a place of low social trust. This fact is significant for understanding the politics and economics of the region, whether for questions of national unity or economic coordination and growth. One of the central ways in which trust and social relations have come to be examined within the social sciences is through the notion of social capital, defined as the norms and networks that enable collective action. Use of the concept of social capital has mushroomed in popularity within academia since the 1980s and has been used within African studies to interpret the developmental effects of social relations. It is important to review how researchers have been synthesizing the study of African societies with the social capital approach, and offer suggestions on how this can be better achieved. Specifically, there is contradiction between the view that social capital is useful for economic development and the view that social capital means a community can decide its own economic goals. Students of social capital in Africa must accept that the cultural and normative diversity of the continent necessitates appreciation of the diverse aims of social networks. This means a rejection both of modernist theories of development and postmodern reduction of human relations to forms of power exchange. Future research on trust and social capital in Africa must give weight to community articulations of motivations to trust, what activities count as communal, and what new economic cultures are being formed as a result of present communal varieties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Abdulelah A. Alghamdi ◽  
Margaret Plunkett

With the increased use of Social Networking Sites and Apps (SNSAs) in Saudi Arabia, it is important to consider the impact of this on the social lives of tertiary students, who are heavy users of such technology. A mixed methods study exploring the effect of SNSAs use on the social capital of Saudi postgraduate students was conducted using a multidimensional construct of social capital, which included the components of life satisfaction, social trust, civic participation, and political engagement. Data were collected through surveys and interviews involving 313 male and 293 female postgraduate students from Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) in Makkah. Findings show that male and female participants perceived SNSAs use impacting all components of social capital at a moderate and mainly positive level. Correlational analysis demonstrated medium to large positive correlations among components of social capital. Gender differences were not evident in the life satisfaction and social trust components; however, females reported more involvement with SNSAs for the purposes of political engagement while males reported more use for civic participation, which is an interesting finding, in light of the norms and traditional culture of Saudi society.


1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Henk Flap

A recent theoretical development within the social sciences has been the emergence of the social capital research program. This is a program on relational resources, their creation, use. and effects. It took shape first within sociology and anthropology, nowadays it is also growing in popularity within political sciences and economics.


2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Healy

Following work by James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu in the 1980s, social scientists from different disciplinary backgrounds have engaged in a debate about the meaning and application of social capital. Questions arise about the coherence, novelty and analytical purchase of the term: there is a risk of overstretching the concept to include too much. Moreover, empirical measures and proxy variables are only very approximately matched to the underlying concept(s). Some applications of the concept lump together different strands of social behaviour and attitude and treats these as universally equivalent or ‘outside’ specific cultures, institutional settings, historical contexts and power structures. It is suggested that these problems cannot be entirely resolved and have parallel examples in all areas of empirical research in the social sciences. However, suggestions are made for greater trans-disciplinary research, dialogue and connection to policy and community practice in an Irish context. We can sum up our position as follows. Social capital has several adolescent characteristics: it is neither tidy nor mature; it can be abused, analytically and politically; its future is unpredictable; but it offers much promise.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-219
Author(s):  
Wan Idros Wan Sulaiman ◽  
Maizatul Haizan Mahbob ◽  
Shahrul Nazmi Sannusi

Department of Information of Malaysia is one of the public organizations directly involved in the provision of information to the public. To ensure that all services rendered acceptable, organizational communication in the Department of Information should be given serious consideration so that each activity can be transformed properly. Therefore, this study was undertaken to assess organizational communication in a learning organization in order to see the extent to which employees have a description of social capital and support to the organization of learning activities. The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship that is formed through the social interactions between workers and management by integrating the four aspects of social capital, namely social trust, institutional trust, social norms and networking. For this purpose, a total of 190 respondents from the Information Department headquarters staff in Putrajaya was selected for this study. The study uses questionnaires as research tool and analyses key findings using the Pearson correlation test to examine relationships between various aspects. The study also applied social capital theory as the basis of research framework the when analyzing findings. The results showed that staff describe positive social capital within the organization and consider organizational learning as a strategy to improve the performance of the department in the future.


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