In his famous 1982 address as a president of the American Sociological Association, Erving Goffman returns to the relation between the interaction order and social structures, which he defines as a „loose coupling‟. This paper elaborates on this intriguing but partially disappointing response, and proposes to complement it by analyzing the role of institutions. First, individual interactions, s...

Between 1972 and 2012, Americans became significantly less trusting of each other and less confident in large institutions, such as the news media, business, religious organizations, the medical establishment, Congress, and the presidency. Levels of trust and confidence, key indicators of social capital, reached all-time or near-all-time lows in 2012 in the nationally representative General Soc...

This research examines how household context mediates with social participation and intergenerational relations to impact subjective well-being among the elderly aged 65 and over in China. Through analyzing data from the 2011 wave of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), the results show that living alone or in institutions links to negative well-being of the elderly. A higher ...

Institutional mapping is a technique that builds on the logic of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In GIS, coverages placed over a base map show spatial relations. Social institutions are more difficult to ‘‘map’’ physically. Institutional mapping uses three social coverages—scale, power, and capital. Four sets of institutions affecting watershed management—salmon restoration, water quality...

renewable natural resources are national capital and are of paramount importance in each country. preservation and developing these resources is incumbent upon relevant institutions and all people especially the beneficiaries. in this regard, various approaches have been recommended for optimum use and sustainable preservation of natural resources especially rangelands among which co-management...

We examine the impact of institutional quality and social capital on aid effectiveness. We find strong evidence that social capital and institutions enhance aid effectiveness. Moreover, once we account for the role of social capital and institutions, the impact of policies tend to disappear. These findings have important policy implications as they indicate that conditioning aid allocation on ‘...

This study empirically assesses the influence of globalization on the institutional root causes of gender equality as measured by the new OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). We capture the multifaceted concept of globalization with the KOF index and its three sub-indices which measure the economic, social and political dimensions of globalization. Observing the progress of globali...

We examine the impact of institutional quality and social capital on aid effectiveness. We find strong evidence that social capital and institutions enhance aid effectiveness. Moreover, once we account for the role of social capital and institutions, the impact of policies tend to disappear. These findings have important policy implications as they indicate that conditioning aid allocation on ‘...