Foa, Roberto
[VerfasserIn]
;
Nemirovskaya, Anna
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft];
Mostovova, Elena
[Sonstige Person, Familie und Körperschaft]
Internal Empires I
: Social Institutions of the Frontier
Erschienen in:Higher School of Economics Research Paper ; No. WP BRP 09/SOC/2012
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource (44 p)
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.2073331
Identifikator:
Entstehung:
Anmerkungen:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments May 31, 2012 erstellt
Beschreibung:
One of the attributes most consistently highlighted in the literature on frontier society is the tendency to spontaneous social organisation. However, despite the resilience of the ‘frontier thesis' within sociology and political science, it has not been subject to a rigorous empirical examination. Does it constitute a description of the social norms and institution of the western United States, or is it one manifestation of a more general ‘frontier phenomenon', found in other times and places? In order to answer these questions, this article examines data on the nature of social relations in frontier zones in four countries: Brazil, Russia, Canada and the United States. Taking a wide range of survey items, we find that higher levels of voluntary activity, social trust, tolerance of outgroups, and civic protest are distinctive features of frontier life, and not simply a feature of the American historical experience