The Phase Transition Of Social Capital In The United States

Social capital theory is a new analysis tool developed in 1980s. It provides a new perspective to explain the political and social phenomenon. In this paper, social capital is defined as the characteristics of social organizations such as trust, norms and networks, they can improve social efficiency through the promotion of cooperation behavior; and trust, norms and social networks constitute the basic elements of social capital.This paper mainly uses the historical research methods of sociology, combined with the theory of political culture to analyze social capital theory, and social capital theory is introduced to the theory of social capital. At the same time, take the wave of social capital theory as the theoretical tool, through trust, norms and social networks these three core variables to explain the periodic changes of American social capital. That is to say, the three core variables in the process of intertwined development, since each core position and variable components vary, the United States presented the development of social capital characteristic wave style. In short, this paper in perspective of political science to analyze the phase characteristics of American social capital.This paper firstly analyzes the background and significance of the stage of American social capital characteristic research, and further analyze the emergence and development of social capital and the related research, at the same time elaborate the main research contents of this thesis and the promise achieve results. Secondly, the paper summarizes the changes of the social capital of the United States into the stage of formation, the stage of prosperity and development, the stage of decay, and explains the change of American social capital by using the theory of the tide of social capital. In the third to the fifth chapter of this paper mainly elaborate the changes of American social capital, take the generative model of American social capital as the logical starting point to explore the operation mechanism of the different stages of the life cycle of American social capital, take trust, norms and social networks as the core variables to analysis the social capital change and sums up the theory of the tide of American social capital.In the perspective of research nature, this thesis combine the research methods of literature research and empirical analysis.the theoretical framework mainly analyze existing literature document, then on the basis of this carry on the depth of excavation; at the same time, the paper in the operational level, mainly through selected a few typical cases of the different stages of it as a key to explore different characteristics of American social capital. Through the search method of case analysis to understand the characteristics of social capital in different stages, and the change of social capital has a certain flexibility. Finally, the conclusion part of the dissertation mainly settled on the problem of stage change of American social capital and the further development prospective of the tide of American social capital theory.The logic clue of this research is the emergence and development of the American social capital. This paper elaborates the three stages of American social capital, which is the emergence of American social capital, prosperity of American social capital and decline of American social capital. This paper based on the theory of the tide social capital, and do a tentative exploration to social capital,in order to deepen the understanding of social capital and promote the research of the theory of social capital.