A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields. Seeking to clarify the concept and help assess its utility for organizational theory, we synthesize the theoretical research undertaken in these various disciplines and develop a common conceptual framework that identifies the sources, benefits, risks, and contingencies of social capital.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4134367.pdf

Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept

■ Abstract The recent proliferation of scholarship on collective action frames and framing processes in relation to social movements indicates that framing processes have come to be regarded, alongside resource mobilization and political opportunity processes, as a central dynamic in understanding the character and course of social movements. This review examines the analytic utility of the framing literature for un- derstanding social movement dynamics. We first review how collective action frames have been conceptualized, including their characteristic and variable features. We then examine the literature related to framing dynamics and processes. Next we review the literature regarding various contextual factors that constrain and facilitate framing processes. We conclude with an elaboration of the consequences of framing processes for other movement processes and outcomes. We seek throughout to provide clarifi- cation of the linkages between framing concepts/processes and other conceptual and theoretical formulations relevant to social movements, such as schemas and ideology.

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Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment

In this paper I try to take the term of embededness out of the framework of the common program assumption and to disclose how the embededness and network structure influence economic action. Basing on the existed theory and ethnographic analysis of the 23 clothes production companies I worked out the methodological scheme which depicts the details, functions and the sources of embededness. On the basis of this scheme I formulated and tested a list of hypotheses with the help of the data on network interactions of all the companies producing qualitative female clothes in the New-York sewing industry. It was found out that the embededness is the exchange system providing unique opportunities in comparison to the market and that firms organized as networks had better chances to survive than those who support casual market ties. However there is a pick of positive effect of embededness at a particular level after which it starts going down.

The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness for the Economic Performance of Organizations: The Network Effect

L'A s'efforce de comprendre comment les structures sociales influent sur la performance economique Il s'interesse plus particulierement a la notion d'« enracinement » Il montre que celle-ci permet de saisir comment les relations sociales modelent l'activite economique Il porte de meme son attention sur les reseaux sociaux qui jouent un role important en cette affaire Il examine en premier lieu le concept d'enracinement structurel Il compare ensuite les performances economiques d'entreprises americaines qui fonctionnent en reseaux avec les resultats d'activite d'entreprises qui n'operent que par le biais du marche Il presente, a ce propos, un certain nombre de donnees collectees aux Etats-Unis, a New York entre 1990 et 1991

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This article aims (1) to analytically disaggregate agency into its several component elements (though these are interrelated empirically), (2) to demonstrate the ways in which these agentic dimensions interpenetrate with forms of structure, and (3) to point out the implications of such a conception of agency for empirical research. The authors conceptualize agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its “iterational” or habitual aspect) but also oriented toward the future (as a “projective” capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a “practical‐evaluative” capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment).

What is agency

Network analysis is one of the most promising currents in sociological research, and yet it has never been subjected to a theoretically informed assessment and critique. This article outlines the theoretical presuppositions of network analysis. It also distinguishes between three different (implicit) models in the network literature of the interrelations of social structure, culture, and human agency. It concludes that only a strategy for historical explanation that synthesizes social structural and cultural analysis can adequately explain the formation, reproduction, and transformation of networks themselves. The article sketches the broad contours of such a theoretical synthesis in the conclusion.

Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency

Emotions are back. Once at the center of the study of politics, emotions have receded into the shadows during the past three decades, with no place in the rationalistic, structural, and organizational models that dominate academic political analysis. With this new collection of essays, Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polletta reverse this trend, reincorporating emotions such as anger, indignation, fear, disgust, joy, and love into research on politics and social protest. The tools of cultural analysis are especially useful for probing the role of emotions in politics, the editors and contributors to "Passionate Politics" argue. Moral outrage, the shame of spoiled collective identities, or the joy of imagining a new and better society, are not automatic responses to events. Rather, they are related to moral institutions, felt obligations and rights, and information about expected effects, all of which are culturally and historically variable. With its look at the history of emotions in social thought, examination of the internal dynamics of protest groups, and exploration of the emotional dynamics that arise from interactions and conflicts among political factions and individuals, "Passionate Politics" will lead the way toward an overdue reconsideration of the role of emotions in social movements and politics generally. Contributors: Rebecca Anne Allahyari Edwin Amenta Collin Barker Mabel Berezin Craig Calhoun Randall Collins Frank Dobbin Jeff Goodwin Deborah B. Gould Julian McAllister Groves James M. Jasper Anne Kane Theodore D. Kemper Sharon Erickson Nepstad Steven Pfaff Francesca Polletta Christian Smith Arlene Stein Nancy Whittier Elisabeth Jean Wood Michael P. Young

Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements

The study of social movements has recently been energized by an explosion of work that emphasizes “political opportunities”—a concept meant to come to grips with the complex environments that movements face. In the excitement over this new metaphor, there has been a tendency to stretch it to cover a wide variety of empirical phenomena and causal mechanisms. A strong structural bias is also apparent in the way that political opportunities are understood and in the selection of cases for study. Even those factors adduced to correct some of the problems of the political opportunity approach—such as “mobilizing structures” and “cultural framing”—are subject to the same structural distortions. We recommend social movement analysis that rejects invariant modeling, is wary of conceptual stretching, and recognizes the diverse ways that culture and agency, including emotions and strategizing, shape collective action.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/685013.pdf

Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory

Figures, tables and maps Abbreviations and acronyms Preface and acknowledgments Part I. Introduction: 1. Comparing revolutionary movements 2. The state-centered perspective on revolutions: strengths and limitations Part II. Southeast Asia: Chronology for Southeast Asia 3. The formation of revolutionary movements in Southeast Asia 4. The only domino: the Vietnamese revolution in comparative perspective Part III. Central America: Chronology for Central America 5. The formation of revolutionary movements in Central America 6. Not-so-inevitable revolutions: the political trajectory of revolutionary movements in Central America Part IV. Further Comparisons and Theoretical Elaborations: 7. Between success and failure: persistent insurgencies Chronology for Eastern Europe 8. 'Refolution' and rebellion in Eastern Europe, 1989 9. Conclusion: generalizations and prognostication Annotated bibliography Index.

Jeff Goodwin

Papers

Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency

Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements

Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory

No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991

The social movements reader : cases and concepts