| Description: |
While social capital networks are used to produce goods and services in every society, what is the nature of these networks in an "anti-modern" society, that is, a society characterized by organizational failure, or the corruption of formal organizations? The networks that individuals can invoke in response include informal, diffuse social cooperation; begging or cajoling public officials; using connections to "bend" rules or paying bribes that break rules. When formal organizations of state and market do not work, those who rely solely on these institutions become socially excluded, since they have no other network to fall back on. The paper draws on the author's specially designed nationwide Russian social capital survey of spring, 1998, which asked people about the networks they use to compensate for organizational failure in different situations. Consistent with James Coleman's assumption, it finds major variations in tactics from one situation to another.
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