17 Mar 2020

Social isolation during a pandemic Challenges and opportunities during COVID-19 lockdown

There are significant barriers to the effective adoption of technology to alleviate social isolation resulting from COVID-19 ‘social distancing’, particularly among those people who were already socially isolated. The barriers most cited in the literature on the use of technology to remedy social isolation are (i) lack of support and training to use technology, (ii) […]

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27 Feb 2020

Capitalism in Transformation – Book Review

Capitalism in Transformation: Movements and Countermovements in the 21st Century Hardcover: 316 pages Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Year: 2019 Language: English Edited by Roland Atzmüller and Brigitte Aulenbacher, Johannes Kepler University Ulrich Brand, University of Vienna Fabienne Décieux and Karin Fischer, Johannes Kepler University Birgit Sauer, University of Vienna, Austria

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03 Feb 2020

China’s Social Credit System An ambitious attempt to build social capital

China is developing a social credit system (SCS), a national reputation system that aims to promote the traditional virtues of integrity, discourage dishonesty, and build an environment of trust. The SCS will utilise big-data enabled surveillance infrastructure to manage, monitor, and predict the trustworthiness of citizens, firms, organizations, and governments. The scheme has attracted

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19 Jan 2020

Social capital and poverty alleviation

Social capital is a vital asset for those in poverty since it can provide access to that which is lacking: capital. Poverty is a state or condition in which a person or community lacks the capital required to meet their needs. Clearly the poor would benefit from more of all forms of capital. However, social […]

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19 Oct 2019

Solving sustainability with social capital? A paradoxical reframing of modernity?

In 1962 Rachel Carson published the book Silent Spring which thrust environmental problems into public awareness and is widely credited with inspiring the environmental movement. Yet nearly 60 years later it doesn’t seem there has been much progress towards sustainability. There has been extensive scientific investigation of environmental issues and leading scientists have twice (1992 […]

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27 Sep 2019

Sources of Social Capital What causes or creates social capital?

Much of the literature on social capital poorly distinguishes its source from its form and consequences. It can be very difficult to make these distinctions since many social phenomena involve complex interrelationships with complicated cyclic, relational, and mutual causality. This article discusses a wide range of sources of social capital, some of which may represent […]

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