In the 1990s the concept of social capital defined here as the norms and networks that enable people to act collectively enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence across all the social science disciplines. The authors trace the evolution of social capital research as it pertains to economic development and identify four distinct approaches the research has taken : communitarian, networks, institutional, and synergy. The evidence suggests that of the four, the synergy view, with its emphasis on incorporating different levels and dimensions of social capital and its recognition of the positive and negative outcomes that social capital can generate, has the greatest empirical support and lends itself best to comprehensive and coherent policy prescriptions. The authors argue that a significant virtue of the idea of and discourse on social capital is that it helps to bridge orthodox divides among scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

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Social capital: implications for development theory, research, and policy

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

This article argues that systematic comparative analyses of women's strategies and coping mechanisms lead to a more culturally and temporally grounded understanding of patriarchal systems than the unqualified, abstract notion of patriarchy encountered in contemporary feminist theory. Women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which I identify as patriarchal bargains. Different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression. Two systems of male dominance are contrasted: the sub-Saharan African pattern, in which the insecurities of polygyny are matched with areas of relative autonomy for women, and classic patriarchy, which is characteristic of South and East Asia as well as the Muslim Middle East. The article ends with an analysis of the conditions leading to the breakdown and transformation of patriarchal bargain...

Bargaining with patriarchy

The Logic of Violence in Civil War: List of Tables and Figures

What makes social-ecological systems (SESs) robust? In this paper, we look at the institutional configurations that affect the interactions among resources, resource users, public infrastructure providers, and public infrastructures. We propose a framework that helps identify potential vulnerabilities of SESs to disturbances. All the links between components of this framework can fail and thereby reduce the robustness of the system. We posit that the link between resource users and public infrastructure providers is a key variable affecting the robustness of SESs that has frequently been ignored in the past. We illustrate the problems caused by a disruption in this link. We then briefly describe the design principles originally developed for robust common-pool resource institutions, because they appear to be a good starting point for the development of design principles for more general SESs and do include the link between resource users and public infrastructure providers.

A Framework to Analyze the Robustness of Social-ecological Systems from an Institutional Perspective

The main states of India are broadly grouped into 2 demographic regimes. In contrast to states in the north southern states are characterized by lower marital fertility later age at marriage lower infant and child mortality and comparatively low ratios of female to male infant and child mortality. The division between the 2 regimes broadly coincides with the division areas of northern kinship/low female autonomy and southern kinship/high female autonomy. The analysis suggests that family social status is probably the most important element in comprehending Indias demographic situation. Women in the south tend to be more active in the labor force are more likely to take innovative action in adopting fertility control and are more apt to utilize health services for themselves and their children. Changes in India are also compared to those other South Asian countries. (authors modified) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

On kinship structure, female autonomy, and demographic behavior in India.

Sources of state revenue have a major impact on patterns of state formation. This proposition from fiscal sociology is valid and convincing in the context of western European history and comparisons among contemporary states in the South. This article investigates the extent to which we can conclude that the quality of governance in contemporary developing countries might improve if states were more dependent for their financial resources on domestic taxpayers. The radically different context of contemporary third-world states cautions against too firm conclusions.

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Revenues, State Formation, and the Quality of Governance in Developing Countries:

1. Introduction: taxation and state-building in developing countries Deborah Brautigam 2. Between coercion and contract: competing narratives on taxation and governance Mick Moore 3. Capacity, consent and tax collection in post-communist states Gerald M. Easter 4. Taxation and coercion in rural China Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lu 5. Mass taxation and state-society relations in East Africa Odd-Helge Fjeldstad and Ole Therkildsen 6. Contingent capacity: export taxation and state-building in Mauritius Deborah Brautigam 7. Tax bargaining and nitrate exports: Chile 1880-1930 Carmenza Gallo 8. Associational taxation: a pathway into the informal sector? Anuradha Joshi and Joseph Ayee 9. Rethinking institutional capacity and tax regimes: the case of the sino-foreign salt inspectorate in republican China Julia Strauss 10. Tax reform and state-building in a globalised world Odd-Helge Fjeldstad and Mick Moore.

Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries: Capacity and Consent

In developing countries in particular, services are often delivered through unorthodox organisational arrangements that cannot simply be dismissed as relics of ‘traditional’ institutions, or as incomplete modern organisations. Some have emerged recently, and represent institutional adaptations to specific political and logistical circumstances. We need to expand the range of organisational categories that are considered worthy of study and develop a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of unorthodox arrangements. The concept of institutionalised co-production provides a useful point of entry. Institutionalised co-production is defined as: the provision of public services (broadly defined, to include regulation) through a regular long-term relationship between state agencies and organised groups of citizens, where both make substantial resource contributions. We explain some varieties of institutionalised co-production arrangements; explore why they appear to be relatively so widespread in ...

Institutionalised Co-production: Unorthodox Public Service Delivery in Challenging Environments

The problem of the proliferation of the number of aid donors and aid channels continues to worsen. It is widely and plausibly believed that this significantly reduces the value of aid by increasing direct and indirect transactions costs. We contribute to the existing literature by: (a) categorising the apparent adverse effects of proliferation; (b) producing a reliable and fair indicator of the relative degree to which the main bilateral donors proliferate or concentrate their aid; (c) giving some explanation of why some donors proliferate more than others; (d) constructing a reliable measure of the extent to which recipients suffer from the problem of fragmentation in the sources of their aid; and (e) demonstrating that the worst proliferators among the aid donors are especially likely to be suppliers of aid to recipients suffering most from fragmentation. There are significant implications for aid policy.

Mick Moore

Papers

On kinship structure, female autonomy, and demographic behavior in India.

Revenues, State Formation, and the Quality of Governance in Developing Countries:

Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries: Capacity and Consent

Institutionalised Co-production: Unorthodox Public Service Delivery in Challenging Environments

Proliferation and fragmentation: Transactions costs and the value of aid