dePoliticising Development - The World Bank and Social Capital

Author: John HarrissPublisher: LeftWordYear: 2001Language: EnglishPages: 145ISBN/UPC (if available): 8187496169 DescriptionThis book explores the origins of the idea of social capital, and its diverse meanings. Social capital has come to play a significant part in 'the anti-politics machine' that is constituted by the discourses of international development.The idea of social capital – meaning, most simply put, ‘social connections’ – was unheard of outside a small circle of sociologists until very recently. Now it is proclaimed by the World Bank to be ‘the missing link’ in international development, and it has become the subject of a flurry of books and research papers, including some, recently, on India.This book explores the origins of the idea of social capital, and its diverse meaning, in the work of James Coleman, Pierre Boundieu, and of Robert Putnam – who is responsible, more than any other, through his work on Italy and the United States, for its extraordinary rise. John Harr