Social Capital in Development Planning: Linking the Actors

269 Pages·2016·2.51 MB·English

by  Raffaella Y. Nanetti

SOCIAL CAPITAL IN
DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
SOCIAL CAPITAL IN
DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
LINKING THE ACTORS
Raff aella Y. Nanetti and Catalina Holguin
SOCIAL CAPITAL IN DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
Copyright © Raffaella Y. Nanetti and Catalina Holguin 2016
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-47800-9
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First published 2016 by
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E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–47801–6
DOI: 10.1057/9781137478016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nanetti, Raffaella.
Social capital in development planning : linking the actors /
Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Catalina Holguin.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Social capital (Sociology) 2. Social planning. 3. Economic
development. 4. Sustainable development. I. Holguin, Catalina,
1976– II. Title.
HM708.N36 2015
302—dc23 2015018915
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
1. Introduction 1
2. Social Capital and Development: Elements and Dimensions 11
3. The Feasibility of Constructing Social Capital 27
4. Development and Not Just Growth 49
5. The Path to Development Through Social Capital 73
6. S ocial Capital in Neighborhood Development:
Pianura, Naples 101
7. S ocial Capital in Educational Policy: Spain 147
8. Conclusions: Linking the Actors for Continuity and
Sustainability 191
Notes 211
Bibliography 231
Index 259
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
3.1 MLG: The policy making and implementation
structure and the impact of the social structure 43
4.1 Traditional socialization theory 68
5.1 S cheme of the contextual SWOT analysis of a territorial
community 76
5.2 Strategic direction of social change in Albania 89
5.3 Principal contextual change dimensions for the Gorizia-
Nova Gorica-Sempeter Vrtojba urban area, early 1990s 93
5.4 Old and new characteristics of the cross-border area 95
5.5 Strategy of reconciliation and its principal components 95
5.6 T he “social capital virtuous cycle” and its iterations 98
6.1 C onceptual framework of the first cycle of social capital
formation in Pianura with the integrated development
program 120
6.2 Spatial distribution of the Pianura Program 134
7.1 T he Spanish National Social Capital Building (NSCB)
program 151
7.2 Intervention points for social capital building by
secondary schools in Spain 164
Tables
2.1 Social capital: Defining elements and forms 19
2.2 Results produced by social capital: Means, outputs,
and outcomes 22
2.3 Bonding social capital: Taxonomy of producers and
results, by example 2 3
2.4 Criminal networks as producers of bonding social
capital, by example 24
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
5.1 S trategies of social capital accumulation in development
planning, by type of leadership 84
5.2 Geographical incidence of vulnerable groups in Albania 88
6.1 C omponents of the Pianura Program 1 33
6.2 Relationships: Objectives and subprograms of the Pianura
Program 135
6.3 Relationships: Expected socioeconomic impact of the
Pianura Program 136
6.4 Actual initial cycle of social capital formation in Pianura
with the implementation of the Pianura Program 141
7.1 T he social capital of Spain’s Autonomous
Communities (1998) 169
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Civil Society as the Foundation and Not a Threat
Today, civil societies exist in a world context of profound contradic-
tions. People are increasingly interconnected across cyber space so that
their personal space extends out to the world 1 and their contacts at a
distance can be multiplied in an exponential manner. At the same time,
people are increasingly separated across physical space so that they lose
close and direct personal relations in favor of media–mediated contacts.
Consequently, their perspectives on events, and with it the capacity to
act together at the level of their territorial communities, is decreasing.
Yet, even today, when people are engaged in common endeavors, in too
many countries around the world, civil society is still under siege. From
the People’s Republic of China to Turkey, from Burma to Zimbabwe,
from Venezuela to Russia, civil society in its organized expressions and
efforts is perceived as a threat by the governments, which attempt to
control and even retaliate to muzzle its presence and voice. The arrest of
leaders of associations, the closure of independent media, the harassment
of members protesting in public, and the discrimination against activists
in education and employment are some of the measures taken by such
governments to stifle the discussion of controversial issues out into the
open. In extreme cases, action against the public airing of issues goes
as far as extreme measures of internment in labor camps, torture, and
imprisonment.
The body of international law acknowledges the prerogatives of
nation-states in internal matters, and even the principles of human rights
upheld by international conventions do not sufficiently protect civil soci-
eties from abuse by governments when people’s freedoms are taken away. 2
Why is it that in many countries, organized civil society is perceived as a
threat? Often the position of the government in this regard is explained
2 SOCIAL CAPITAL IN DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
by the necessity to pursue with vigor and without interference the path
of growth and prosperity, so that the country has the best chance to exit
with speed from its traditional condition of poverty and despair. Yet,
this explanation is a n on-sequitur . Indeed, where is the evidence that even
in the current historical age, when information and knowledge are dif-
fused across cyber space, prosperity can be insured by government action
alone? In the absence of collective responsibility to oversee and criticize
government decisions and to prompt government to act, where is the evi-
dence for an existing link between what governments declare and what
they are able to achieve? There is no such evidence.
Moreover, there is no evidence that the two elements, of information
that is diffused across cyber space and of innovations that are continu-
ously produced by applied knowledge, per se can create the conditions
for a better quality of life for all people. In addition, there is no evidence
that such conditions of prosperity can be maintained over time without
a robust support from civil society. Rather, there is an evidence to the
contrary from countries that have achieved high levels of diffused pros-
perity that an engaged civil society is the necessary foundation to insure
that governments can embark successfully on the path of significant and
sustainable improvement of people’s lives. Indeed, this book is about con-
tributing evidence and a new policy approach that confirm the assertion
that in territorial communities an engaged civil society is the precon-
dition for a future of development that encompasses economic equity,
social cohesion, personal liberty, and political commitment.
Globalization and Unacceptable Dualities
When, during the early years of the new millennium, some of the
analyses and conclusions mentioned in this work were first presented as
preliminary findings of an ongoing research agenda, 3 the state of the
world’s economy was quite different from what it is today. The impetu-
ous dynamic of what appeared to be a trend of unrestrained and diffused
growth was preeminent, so that the impending financial and economic
problems that produced the crisis that engulfed the world starting in 2008
were not generally perceived. Conversely, the contextual elements that
underlined the analyses of many of our projects were and are still valid
in the way in which they profiled the transformative trends of the world
economy over the previous two decades. At that time, many did not
acknowledge the dual impact of growth a nd marginalization that was
being produced across territorial communities by the rapid pace and the
large scale of the processes of economic development and social change
around the world.
INTRODUCTION 3
Beyond the communities where our research took place, our work was
relevant to the scholarly considerations on the accelerating technological
and communication innovations that are the drivers profoundly affecting
peoples’ lives in developed and developing countries. Under their impe-
tus, territorial economies and cities were being pulled directly into mul-
tiple and denser networks of external relationships that define the current
phase of globalization and fuel the purpose of achieving ever-higher levels
of growth (Taylor et al., 2006; Lechner and Boli, 2004; Streeten, 2001;
Sassen, 1998). Only a few marginalized countries, it was stated, were left
partially untouched by this process of change, although they had to pay a
high price of dependency, particularly in terms of increased outflows of
human capital and natural resources toward the world’s core areas (Clark,
1996; Brecher and Costello, 1994; Przeworski, 1992; Smith, 1984).
In our own work, we underline how in those few decades the policy
aim of growth has asserted itself in most of the countries, the People’s
Republic of China being the exemplary and macroscopic example. We
argue that the territorial significance and sustainability of gains made
by those advanced countries, where many comprehensive develop-
ment policies had been adopted, were also threatened by global change.
Competition principles and economic forces hetero-directed were pro-
foundly influencing the future prosperity and cohesiveness of developed
countries, more than ever before, so that no economic and social gains
could be considered permanent. Rather, both the improvements in the
developed countries’ safety nets and the increases in their stocks of “public
goods” were under threat, while domestic policies to counter the trend of
prospective reductions were limited in their impact.
In 2008, no lesser contextual change than a worldwide economic cri-
sis of great proportion abruptly materialized, one that in its causes has
been compared by many to the Great Depression. The crisis started in
the core countries, first of all in the United States with the unraveling of
the financial sector, which had grown to oversized proportions through
the creation and sale of mortgage backed securities, facilitated by the
loosening of regulations and controls over capital mobility. From the core
countries, the financial crisis—and related credit crunch—expanded to
the rest of the world’s financial system. Then, the crisis impacted very
quickly on the world’s “real economy” where among others, it devastated
the construction, car manufacturing, and consumer products industries,
causing loss of jobs to millions and escalating the loss of purchasing power
on the part of the lower and middle classes. The change in fortunes forced
many governments into action, borrowing heavily to fund “stimulus”
packages that could inject capital into their stalled and shrinking econo-
mies in the expectation that the downward spiral could be reversed.