International Civic Engagement

Social Capital Conferences, Publications and Grad Schools

From Fabio Sabatini of Social Capital Gateway:

Dear All,
this is to let you know about some interesting news on social capital and related topics.
 
Conferences:
 
- The program of the Social Capital Foundation Malta Conference that will take place in Bugibba, Malta, on 19-22 September 2008 is now available:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-malta2008.html#program
 
Please note that the deadline is still open and will end on 31 July 2008.
 
- The conference "The Third Sector and Sustainable Social Change: Frontiers for Research" will take place in Barcelona, Spain, on 9-12 July 2008. The program is now available at the address:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-barcelona2008c.html

- The workshop of the Social Movements Research Network will take place in Trento, Italy, on 10-11 October 2008. The deadline for abstract submission is 5 July 2008:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-trento2008.html

- The conference "Citizen Participation and Democratic Engagement" will be held in Bristol, UK, on 27-28 October 2008. The deadline for submitting an abstract is 31 july 2008:
 
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-bristol2008.html

Forum
 
- The Social Enterprise World Forum will take place in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 2-5 September 2008. Please follow the link for further details:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-edinburgh2008.html

Books
 
- Eric M. Uslaner (2008), Corruption, Inequality and the Rule of Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-news.htm#ric

- Flash Eurobarometer Survey "What Does European Citizenship Means to Europeans?", Flash Eurobarometer Survey No. 213:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-news.htm#eurob

Grad schools
 
- PhD Course on "Approaching Organisations", organised by the Roskilde University, the Danish Institute for International Studiesand the Aarhus University. The course will be held in Jyllinge, Denmark, from 8 to 10 December 2008:
 
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-postgraduate.html#phdorgan

- The Summer School on Social Inequalities in Contemporary Societies" will take place in Trento, Italy, from 31 August to 6 September 2008:
 
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-postgraduate.html#summertrento

- PhD Programme in Economics at the University of Milan, Italy. The deadline for submitting an application is 30 July 2008 (the call for applications is only in Italian):
 
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/ita-postgraduate.html#bandounimi

- PhD Programme in Economics at the University of Turin, Italy. The deadline for submitting an application is 18 July 2008 (the call for applications is only in Italian):

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/ita-postgraduate.html#bandounito

Papers
 
If you want to receive a weekly notification reporting new papers on social capital related topics, you can subscribe to the Nep-Soc (New Economics Papers on Social Norms & Social Capital) newsletter I edit within the RePEc project:
 
http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-soc

 
Thank you for your attention.
Best regards,
Fabio Sabatini

Call for Papers - OMNES: Journal of Migration and Society

Sookmyung Institute for Multicultural Studies invites manuscripts for the inaugural issue of OMNES: Journal of Migration and Society to be published biannually from 2009.  OMNES welcomes submissions from academics and professionals in the fields of the humanities, social sciences, business, arts and education.  The scope of the journal covers themes such as the global movement of people, human security related to migration, multicultural societies, identity, nationalism, citizenship, ethnicity, diversity, social conflict and cohesion, and relevant topics.  Deadline for submission is November 30th, 2008.  If you wish to submit a manuscript, please send us the title or a one-paragraph outline.  For more information, please send an email to omnes@sm.ac.kr.

Sookmyung Institute for Multicultural Studies, Sookmyung University, Yongsan-Ku, Seoul 140-742, Korea

Exploring Host Country Capacity for Increasing U.S. Study Abroad

From the Institute of International Education:

The May 2008 IIE White Paper represents the second publication of the study abroad policy research series on Meeting America's Global Education Challenge. This new report highlights research and findings from a fall 2007 snapshot survey of over 500 host institutions abroad, and on the efforts made by these institutions to increase their host capacity for larger numbers of U.S. students. It also analyzes the challenges these institutions face as well as their motivations and strategic plans to undertake efforts toward internationalization. The report aims to provide policy makers and international education administrators with focused data on how host institutions and countries perceive greatly expanding U.S. study abroad participation.

New Report Sheds Light on Success Strategies of Fast-Growing Countries

From the World Bank:

South Korea was once one of Asia’s poorest countries. Today, it’s one of the wealthiest, a high-income country with a standard of living about the same as Slovenia, Israel, or Saudi Arabia, and higher than in the Czech Republic, Oman or Portugal.

South Korea is one of only 13 countries that managed to pull off a kind of miracle in the post World War II era—economic growth averaging 7 percent or more for at least 25 years in a row, according to the “Growth Report: Strategies for Sustained Growth and Inclusive Development.” The report was prepared by the Commission on Growth and Development, an independent body supported by Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the World Bank Group.

High, long-lived growth isn’t easily achieved, but the report by some of the world’s top policy-makers and thinkers argues it can be repeated in other countries, thereby giving them a chance to reduce poverty and improve opportunity and quality of life for their citizens.

“The Growth Report,” released last week in London, Cairo, Cape Town, New York and St. Kitts, seeks to unlock the growth strategies of high growth countries and highlight the potential of economic growth to improve lives around the globe. Some 3 billion people have been able to enjoy the fruits of growth in the post-war period, and another 2 billion could also benefit from the global economy.

New Social Capital Conferences, Grad Schools and Publications

From Fabio Sabatini of Social Capital Gateway:

Dear All,
this is to let you know about some interesting news on social capital and related topics:
 
New call for papers
 
- Special issue of Organization Science on "The Genesis and Dynamics of Networks". Guest editors Gautam Ahuja, Giuseppe Soda, Akbar Zaheer. The deadline for submitting a paper is October 31, 2008. Please follow the link for all details:

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-organizationscience.html

- "Behavioral Labor Economics". The conference is organized by IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor) and will take place in Bonn, Germany, on October 17-18, 2008. The deadline for submitting an abstract is June 15, 2008. Travel expenses for presenters will be reimbursed by IZA:
 

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-bonn2008.html

 
- "Gender and Corruption in Development Cooperation". The conference is organized by the EADI and will take place in Eschborn, Germany, on November 10-11, 2008. The dedline for submitting an abstract is August 1, 2008:
 

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-eschborn2008.html

 
Grad schools
 
- Graduate School in Economic Governance, Development, and Public Policy, organized by Department of Economics of Åbo Akademi University of Turku, Finland, from 15th to 21st of September 2008:
 

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/ita-postgraduate.html#turku

 
- Summer School in Advanced Quantitative Methods, organized by the School of Engineering of the University of Pisa, Italy, from 7th to 11th of July 2008:
 

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/ita-postgraduate.html#pisaq

 
Books
 
- "Civic Engagement and Civic Attitudes in Cross-National Perspectives", special issue di Political Studies, guest editors Marc Morjé Howard and Dietlind Stolle:
 

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-news.htm#polstudies1

 
- "Social Capital", virtual issue of Political Studies, including articles on social capital published on the journal from 2000 to 2006:
 

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/post/56/v2

 
- "Social Capital, Networks and Economic Development. An Analysis of Regional Productive Systems", by Marìa Semìtiel Garcia:
 

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-news.htm#semitiel

 
Papers
 
If you want to receive a weekly notification reporting new papers on social capital related topics, you can subscribe to the Nep-Soc (New Economics Papers on Social Norms & Social Capital) newsletter I edit within the RePEc project:

http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-soc

Thank you for your attention.
Best regards,
Fabio Sabatini

Organizations Selected for the 2008 Global Accountability Report

From One World Trust:

30 organizations from the intergovernmental, corporate and non-governmental sectors will be assessed in the 2008 Global Accountability Report. The launch of the Report will take place in the first week of December.

The Global Accountability Report assesses the accountability of thirty of the world's most powerful organisations according to four dimensions: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms.

List of organizations: www.oneworldtrust.org/?display=index_2008

Creative Economy Report 2008

From UNCTAD:

The so called "Creative economy" is an evolving concept based on the potential of "creative assets" to generate socio-economic growth and development, in a globalized world increasingly dominated by images, sounds, texts and symbols.

At the heart of the creative economy lie the creative industries. Loosely defined, the creative industries are at the crossroads of arts, culture, business and technology and use intellectual capital as their primary input. Today's creative industries range from folk art, festivals, music, books, newspapers, paintings, sculptures and performing arts to more technology-intensive subsectors such as the film industry, TV and radio broadcasting, digital animation and video games, and more service-oriented fields such as architectural and advertising services.

The Creative Economy Report 2008 - The challenge of assessing the creative economy towards informed policy-making is the first comprehensive study to present the United Nations perspective on this emerging topic. This policy-oriented analysis is intended to facilitate a better understanding of the key issues underlying the emerging creative economy at national and international levels. It brings together contributions from five United Nations organizations, namely UNCTAD, UNDP UNESCO, WIPO and the International Trade Center (ITC), in a joint endeavor to enhance policy coherence and international action in this area.

The development dimension is the guiding principle of this Report which aims to assist developing countries to harness their creative economies and to maximize trade and development gains by recognizing the creative economy as a feasible development option for linking economic, technological, social and cultural development objectives of our contemporary society.

Should Colleges Focus More on Personal and Social Responsibility?

My Park University colleague Gary Bachman brought to my attention a new Association of American Colleges & Universities publication titled "Should Colleges Focus More on Personal and Social Responsibility?"  See the description below:

Should Colleges Focus More on Personal and Social Responsibility?   Initial Findings from Campus Surveys Conducted for the Association of American Colleges and Universities as Part of Its Initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility

By  Eric L. Dey and Associates, Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education University of Michigan School of Education

http://www.aacu.org/core_commitments/documents/PSRII_Findings_April2008.pdf
 
(The AAC&U identifies five key dimensions of personal and social responsibility:  1. Striving for excellence; 2. Cultivating personal and academic integrity;  3. Contributing to a larger community; 4. Taking seriously the perspectives of others; 5. Developing competence in ethical and moral reasoning.)

"Colleges and universities strive to promote a wide range of outcomes among the students that they enroll and serve. One goal of the Core Commitments projects is to ascertain whether students, faculty, student affairs staff, and academic administrators think personal and social responsibility should be a major focus of college education, and how well they think their institutions are successfully focusing on such outcomes."

"finding 1.  Across all categories, students and campus professionals strongly agree that personal and social responsibility should be a major focus of a college education."

"finding 2   Across all groups surveyed, far fewer individuals agreed that personal and social responsibility was currently a major focus on their campus. There is a clear gap between what they perceive “should be” and what “is.”

"finding 3 Across all groups, significant numbers—but not a majority—of students and professionals alike think that students leave college having become stronger across various dimensions of personal and social responsibility during college."

'The Public Manager' Looks at The Collaboration Project, Prints Its First Full-Color Issue, and Launches Its Inaugural Practitioner Conference

Courtesy of PRNewswire-USNewswire:

The feature article in the first full-color issue of 'The Public Manager,' available today, examines how today's government relies on broad networks that extend beyond other public-sector entities to include the private sector, nonprofit organizations, community groups, and individual citizens. It focuses on The Collaboration Project, a newly launched leadership forum of the National Academy of Public Administration that uses research, best practices, and other resources to help apply the benefits of Web 2.0 and collaborative technology in government.

This issue also announces the inaugural flagship conference -- Transforming Bureaucratic Cultures: Challenges and Solutions for Public Management Practitioners -- July 28-29 at Baltimore's Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. This conference, held in partnership with the American Society for Public Administration, features a number of practical take-aways, including best practices from case illustrations presented in more than 30 panel sessions and sponsored workshops as well as solutions to management challenges such as reaping the strategic benefits of performance-based acquisition, managing virtually in a technology-smart organization, and inter-organizational collaboration in the face of catastrophic disasters.

The spring issue also presents the second part of a forward-looking forum that speculates on the next 'President's Management Agenda' and the shape of human resources, technology, and twenty-first-century government to come. It examines the Interagency Network of Enterprise Assistance Providers, an unusual collaboration of government agencies and private businesses that enhances services to small business, and then discusses how a county government in Montana uses communication techniques to democratize decision making without impeding it. It also opines that government still has a ways to go to in using the citizen-engaging technology that can make its data available online, easy to access, and understandable.

The journal's Web site, http://www.thepublicmanager.org, features a searchable archive 35 years of articles, as well as new opportunities to engage fellow managers through electronic forums and blogs.

'The Public Manager' offers readers practical solutions for emerging public administration and policy issues from experienced professionals. A forum for developing and disseminating best practices, it encourages continuing excellence in government and nonprofit organizations. 'The Public Manager' is a subsidiary of the nonprofit The Bureaucrat, Inc., and is sponsored by the LMI Research Institute.

Global Monitoring Report Warns on MDG Goals

From the World Bank:

At the halfway mark to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline of 2015, the world has not made the necessary progress, but success is still possible given certain conditions, said World Bank economist Zia Qureshi, lead author of this year’s Global Monitoring Report.

While much of the world is on track to halve extreme poverty by the deadline, prospects are much graver for the goals of reducing child and maternal mortality, and serious shortfalls are also expected in education, nutrition, and sanitation. On current trends, Sub-Saharan Africa could miss all the MDGs, despite impressive growth performance of recent years. South Asia is seriously behind on the goals related to health and education.

“Behind these statistics are of course real people, and lack of progress has immediate and tragic consequences,” said Qureshi. “Some targets are literally a matter of life or death: There are now 3 million more children who survive past the age of five, but there are 10 million children a year who don’t.”