The Social Capital Foundation

The Social Capital Foundation (TSCF) is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization that pursues the promotion of social capital and social cohesion. Created in 2002, it is based in Brussels.

Social capital

Social capital is a key concept in economics, organizational behaviour, political science, social psychology, and sociology. Some trace the modern usage of the term to Jane Jacobs in the 1960s, but the first cohesive exposition of the term was by Pierre Bourdieu in 1972 and 1984. James Coleman developed and popularized the concept. In the late 1990s, the concept became respectable, with the World Bank devoting a research programme to it and with its currency in Robert Putnam's 2000 book, Bowling Alone. It was further developed by the work of Patrick Hunout (2003-2004) on the erosion of the social link in the economically developed countries.

TSCF's purpose

TSCF promotes social capital, defined as a set of mental dispositions and attitudes favoring cooperative behaviors within society. In that sense, social capital can be regarded as a semantic equivalent to the community spirit. The community spirit was theorized and enhanced notably by Patrick Hunout, Amitai Etzioni and the Communitarian Network, although the concern raised by the erosion of the community traces back to the fathers of modern sociology such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim or the School of Chicago. TSCF promotes social capital through socio-economic research, publications, and events. The Foundation sets up international conferences on a regular basis.

The International Scope Review
TSCF edits The International Scope Review (TISR), an international academic journal that publishes multidisciplinary research on the contemporary transformations taking place in the industrial countries. By linking three fields: economic relationships, interethnic relationships and interpersonal relationships, TISR attempts to offer a global understanding of the changes in society and the economy.

Created 1999, the journal has delivered 14 issues so far, bearing on societal issues such as (among others) the weakening of the social bond in the developed countries, the definition and measurement of social capital, the links between suicide and individualism, the emergence of the new religions, and the contemporary crisis of the family link, - but also on sociopolitical issues such as the real objectives of European integration, the implications of mass immigration for the Western countries, the possible development of an organised civil society, and tax morale and justice.

TSCF International Conferences

TSCF International Conferences include:

* the 2004 Brussels conference on the Future of Family (Brussels, May 11-13, 2004, "The Future of Family: Recomposition or Decomposition?"),

* the 2005 Malta I conference on Social Capital (Buggiba, September 20-22, 2005, "Social Capital, Definition, Measurement, Applications"),

* the 2008 Malta II conference on Social Inclusion (Buggiba, September 19-22, 2008, "Perspectives on Social Capital and Social Inclusion").

The tripartite model of societal change

TISR is based on the "tripartite model of societal change" elaborated by Dr Patrick Hunout from the years 1995-1996 on. This model became the basis of an international peer-reviewed research publication, The International Scope Review. His work explores the formation of what he called a "New Leviathan" around the hypothesis that the upper class of society seeks to build a new order based on less equality and less democracy.

His model suggests that the strategies carried forward by the "New Leviathan" link intimately the economic, ethnic, and interpersonal fields. These strategies consist in developing economic flexibility and precariousness, promoting migrations and a multiethnic society, and pushing forward individualist, hedonist and consumerist values. In a last resort, they design a weak society, enslaved to market values and governmental controls rendered necessary by the increasing incapacity of an atomized social body to manage itself. This approach suggests that strategies carried forward by the ruling class explain most contemporary difficulties.

Consolidating society through social capital

The response of The Social Capital Foundation, as expressed in various issues of The International Scope Review (1999, 2003, 2004, 2005), to the erosion of the social link consists in expanding social capital.

TSCF's orientation emphasizes:

* The social dimension of the market economy: tempering the effects of the free market on precariousness and social fragility, not through bureaucratic controls, but through the development of "socially responsible corporate policies", of the non-profit economy sector and of a partnership system between employers and employees in the spirit of what has been called "Rhineland capitalism",

* The pivotal role of the middle class in modern society: promoting a society with a large, educated and wealthy middle-class able to play a responsive role in the settlement of issues, in order to favor democratic life, which may have implications for revenues, wage and tax policies, as well as for education and learning practices.

* The necessity for improvement of social cooperation and participation: on the basis of the above, a stronger society would involve a massive reduction in the role of the governments, compensated by a raise in the role of the organized civil society (NGOs and independent organizations). Civic participation in the judicial and governmental institutions would be developed and the legal and tax systems would be democratized.

* The preservation of cultural identity for community integration: migration policies would be restricted and third world socio-economic development policies would take over from them, while the attribution of nationality would be submitted to community approval. Thus TSCF suggested that "mass immigration helps maintain the older systems of governance. Thus, the main objective of this policy rapidly became to reconstruct a new working class, a class that was disappearing since the XIXth century, not only in terms of financial resource level but also in terms of submission to authority and social stratification" (Peace and Conflict Monitor, 09/16/2003).

* Finally, raising the level of social capital would have implications for a wide range of behaviors on a daily basis, such as showing a lesser individualism, developing compromise-readiness, being critical to consumption values, as well as reintroducing congeniality and civility in the family, neighborhood and interpersonal relationships so as to learn again to live together.

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