El capital social en el marco de las nuevas estrategias del Banco Mundial para la reducción de la pobreza

Abstract

Towards the end of the 1980s, the multilateral financial institutions promoted a series of policy recommendations encouraged by the purpose of achieving stabilization with growth in the Latin American region. Encouraged by a minimalist conception of the role of the state, the recommendations that supported the reforms of the 1990s focused their attention on the dismantling of the so-called “populist state”, rather than on the reconstruction of the institutional capacities necessary for its restructuring. In recent times, the dubious success of these strategies led to a rethinking of the relationship between economic growth, development, poverty and inequality. Along these lines, the notion of social capital is becoming a central element both in the new World Bank diagnoses and in its recommendations to reduce poverty. The purpose of this article is to critically analyze this new view of the organism, based on the analysis of the document “Juntos Podemos. Levels and determinants of Social Capital in Argentina ”, prepared by the Department of Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (Latin America and the Caribbean Region) in October 2001. Although it is a case study, the interesting thing is that, Based on certain arguments, the report formulates guidelines and public policy recommendations that, due to their practical implications, transcend the Argentine experience and are of interest to a broader group of developing countries.