No abstract

This paper oers a substantial review of the ways in which the concept of social capital' has been used in the recent theoretical and policy literatures. Attention is drawn to the signi®cant dierence between the way in which the term has been de®ned by its two major proponents, James Coleman and Robert Putnam. Putnam's usage, which is the one which has been taken over in development policy thinking by some in the World Bank, is subjected to substantial critique. It is concluded that policy arguments which pose civil society against the state, or which rest on the view that rich endowment in`social capital' is a precondition for`good government', are almost certainly misconceived. #

No abstract

No abstract

The three principal communist parties of India continue, in their programmes, to emphasize the significance of landlordism. This paper subjects their arguments about the current state of agrarian production relations to scrutiny, in the light of contemporary research and scholarship. This strongly suggests that classic ‘semi‐feudal’ landlordism has very largely gone. The paper argues however, that there remains a strong case for redistributivist land reform, even though it does not supply the answer to the agrarian question of India that once it did. For all the evidence of the ‘declining power of caste hierarchies’ and the reduced significance of the village, landed power remains a major factor in Indian politics and society.