Does Social Capital Matter : from Civil Society to Social Capital in Uzbekistan

DOI IR IR (HANDLE) Web Site Open Access

Search this article

Description

Considering the urge of the international developmental institutions, donors and scholars upon the necessity of civil society building in developing countries, this paper analyzes it from developing countries perspective. It examines evolution of civil society concept in the West and integration with neo-liberal values of 1980s. In the process of concept integration, this paper argues that civil concept has been polarized and affected its growth in Uzbekistan. Rather than being civil it has become uncivil society in the eyes of the government. Importance of associational life and civic involvement was re-emerged in the works of Putnam in his Social Capital theory in the end of 1990s. In developing countries like Uzbekistan, social capital has been clamed as existing traditional associational life and it serves as unique 'communal civil society'. Besides, as an active civil society is considered the sphere of Public Associations and GONGOs which what general society believes to be. In this paper we argue that those scholars' attempts to define both neo-liberal civil society and social capital in Uzbekistan perspective do not serve for the productivity of research unless such research seeks for enabling state-society synergy.

Journal

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top