Social Structures, Social Capital, and Personal Freedom

The eleven essays in this collection examine the relationship between institutional structures and community integration, offering practical insights to increase social capital and strengthen social institutions.

A variety of social institutions are analyzed. Three chapters cover political legal issues, two cover religion, three address education, and two examine the macrostructures of the military and the economy. An important collection for scholars and other researchers interested in the communitarian movement, sociology, and political science, particularly for those in public administration.

DALE McCONKEY is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Berry College, Georgia. He has written several articles exploring the relationship between traditional religion and contemporary society, and he is editor (with Peter Augustine Lawler) of Community and Political Thought Today (Praeger, 1998).

PETER AUGUSTINE LAWLER is Professor of Political Science at Berry College. He is author or editor of eight books and more than 100 articles and book chapters. Among his earlier publications are The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the Origin and Perpetuation of Human Liberty and The American Experiment (edited with Robert Schaefer).