Social Capital and Civil Society in Public Policy, Social Change, and Welfare.

Mainstream economics reduces concepts of social capital and civil society to means for profit and competition, reproducing inequality and power. Alternative approaches identify social capital with state-society synergy relations and generalized networks of cooperation, which enable the civil society to promote solidarity, democracy, public policy, social change, and welfare. Similarly, Post-Keynesian Institutionalism recognizes the creative role of the state, democratic institutions, and civic values. However, questions remain regarding how social groups and the state interact and promote change. This article seeks to fill that void by connecting these analyses with the literature on the commons and participatory and deliberative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]