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The Social and Cultural Capital of Civil
Society
Rome,
Italy
May 16-17, 2006
Though Aristotle once wrote that democracy was the worst
form of government, he thought that it could be made to work if
the citizenry could actively cooperate in seeking not their
private-individual interests, but the common good. With the need
to resuscitate social life after the final demise of the great
totalitarian projects in 1989 and the present decline of the
nation state, the redevelopment of civil society has become an
urgent priority as expressed by the project “Citadinanza
Attiva” in Rome. Sociologically this has been codified under
the theme “social capital” by Pierre Bourdieu in social
theory, James Coleman in education, and indeed by the World Bank
with regard to sustainable development. Most notably it has been
studied in Italy by Robert Putman and in the US by Francis
Fukuyama. Essentially it concerns the ability of a people to
work together applying their skills in response to needs which
are in addition to those that are cared for through the economic
and political structures.
Fukuyama documents the decline of
this practice in the U.S., while E. Banfield and R. Putman
relate its limitations in Southern Italy to its dominant
cultural focus upon the extended family.
However, it is characteristic of
our global times that greater attention is now being given
precisely to cultures and thus to the traditional ties of family
and clan, ethnicity and civilization. Whether between immigrant
and majority cultures or between ethnic groups within nations
– even those considered highly developed – or between whole
civilizations, issues of identity have heightened and come to
generate suspicion, fear and even violent conflict.
This suggests that the issue of
developing ‘social capital’ as cooperation between citizens
for the common good is increasingly informed by what Bourdieu
referred to as ‘cultural capital’ and that upon this
progress in the development of social capital now depends.
This conference will attend
especially to this grounding of social capital in cultural
capital. It will search for ways in which cultural traditions
can either alienate or bring people together and how this can be
applied to the promotion and realization of the social capital
essential to civil society.
In brief this project attempts to
relate ‘social capital’ to ‘cultural capital’ in order
to take up the cultural heritage of a people as both impediment
and support to the cooperation between citizens needed for civil
society. This is not only an older problem for the South as
pointed out by Banfield and Putman, but an emerging problem
today of divisions, at times violent, between immigrant and
majority cultures as well as between civilizations in the new
global society. Can civil society survive in the face of these
forces; can cultural capital be made to build relationships
rather than conflict? These are among the most urgent issues of
our day.
To study these the conference will
be two days in length, May 16-17 and will include three closed
sessions of 20 scholars on: (a) theories of civil society,
social capital and cultural capital; (b) the resources and
challenge these bear for civil society in the U.S. and Europe;
(c) the prospects for civil society in global times. In a public
session Robert Putman will speak on “Social Capital and Civil
Society in the U.S.”
This is the fourth joint study by
the Active Citizenship Network, Rome and The Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy/The Center for the Study of
Culture and Values, Washington. It will be concerned with the
cultural deepening of issues of social capital for civil society
in Europe East and West, the U.S. and the emerging global
context. Each issue will be introduced by related speakers; half
the time will be devoted to open discussion.
Program
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