RUSSIAN SOCIAL CAPITAL NETWORKS

Professor RICHARD ROSE

Final report of a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, 2002-2002

OBJECTIVES. Social capital is a vague label for different phenomena. The project classified social capital into general social networks; situation-specific networks; trusting attitudes; and integration in social organizations. The project thus had three objectives: i) Differentiating measures of social capital networks; ii) Explaining why individuals differ in the forms of social capital that they invoke; iii) Determining the consequences for individual welfare of the uses of social capital.
A review of assumptions of the social capital literature highlighted the contrast between many studies that measured social capital as indicated by an attitude, trust, and the smaller number that concentrated on behavioural networks and their outputs. Measures of trust normally assumed rather than demonstrated that trust had productive consequences, while network analysis sought to document how social capital could make a difference for individual welfare. The CSPP data base is distinctive in having measures of all three key concepts: trust, networks and specific forms of welfare.

RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS
1. Clarifying differences in measures of social capital and distinguishing them from established concepts such as human capital. An early article presented empirical evidence of distinctive measures of situation-specific capital as well as generic measures. Subsequent multivariate statistical analyses differentiated four types of indicators: conventional social integration measures (e.g. membership in organization, church attendance); situation-specific networks (e.g. good only for health care); and fungible social capital (e.g. trust in people); and trust in formal organizations as against interpersonal trust. The work thus overcomes problems inherent in the leading current definition of social capital, that of Robert Putnam, which confounds trusting attitudes and cooperative behaviour.

2. Showing how much (or how little) social capital adds to different forms of welfare. Multivariate statistic analysis of Russian data first determined how much of welfare could be accounted for by conventional human capital indicators, such as education and income. Social capital indicators were then added. The results give a clear and precise measure of what social capital adds to welfare. Social capital adds substantially to physical and emotional health to safety on the street, and to income security However, it makes little difference for Russians getting enough food. Contrary to political science assumptions, social capital adds little or nothing to support for democratic values in Russia.

3. Social capital networks can help people cope with formal organizations. A paper on uses of the Internet shows how people who already have informal networks (for example, Chinese-speakers dispersed over three Chinas and continents) can combine these contacts with IT technology to interact commercially and politically. Russian papers show how informal networks there can be used to exploit formal organizations. Positive effects of social capital on health have a knock on effect too, making individuals more confident in dealing with challenges of transformation, and such self-confidence can offset potentially anomic shocks from transformation.

4. Social capital can be used for anti-social as well as positive ends. Putnam's claim that social capital makes democracy work has encouraged the belief that it is an all-purpose solvent for promoting social goods. This project (as well as critiques of Putnam's Italian work) emphasizes that in some contexts social capital networks can be used to corrupt the state, break laws, secure privileges and inhibit national development, as in Yeltsin's Russia.

5. Uses of social capital in Russia have potential for generalization to other countries where formal organizations are weak or non-bureaucratic. The scope for generalization across eight countries in the former Soviet Union, extending to Kazahkstan and Kyrgyzstan, is about to be tested with a framework that I have developed for a European Commission-funded project on social context of health, co-ordinated by the Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna. Russian-style networks are used in a paper on economies in transition for the Chinese Institute for Reform & Development. A review of World Bank poverty surveys in Africa found social capital analysis could add value there. There are reasons to argue that social capital is more important in developing and transition countries than in modern societies where formal organizations work well and according to rules. However, such societies are a minority in the world today.

PUBLICATIONS
Mishler, William and R. Rose. "What are the Origins of Political Trust?" Comparative Political Studies, 34, 1, 30-62, 2001.
Rose, Richard. "Uses of Social Capital in Russia: Modern, Pre-Modern, and Anti-Modern", Post-Soviet Affairs, 16,1, 2000, 33-57.
Rose, Richard."How Much Does Social Capital Add to Individual Health? A Survey Study of Russians" Social Science and Medicine, 51, 9, 2000, 1421-35.
Rose, Richard. "When Government Fails" in B. Edwards, M. W. Foley and M. Diani, eds., Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and Social Capital in Comparative Perspective. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2001, 56-69.
Rose, Richard."Governance and the Internet". In Yusuf, Shahid, Altaf, M. Anjum, and Nabeshima, Kaoru, eds., Global Change and East Asian Policy Initiatives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 337-364.
Rose, Richard. "Social Shocks, Social Confidence and Health". In Judyth Twigg and Kate Schecter, eds., Social Capital and Social Cohesion in Post-Soviet Russia. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003, 98-117.
Rose, Richard. "Economies in Transformation: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to a Cross-Cultural Problem" East European Constitutional Review Fall-Winter 2003, 62-70, and in Russian.
Rose, Richard and Craig Weller. "What Does Social Capital Add to Democratic Values?". In G. Badescu and Eric Uslaner, eds., Social Capital and Transition to Democracy London and New York: Routledge, 2003, 200-219.
plus
Research seminars and public policy presentations to universities, think tanks and intergovernmental institutions in seven European countries, the United States and in China.