Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Rural—Urban Relations in a Global Age
- Chapter 3 Every Village, a Different Story: Tracking Rural Diversity in Bulgaria
- Chapter 4 Smugglers into Millionaires: Marginality and Shifting Cultural Hierarchies in a Bulgarian Border Town
- Chapter 5 Rural Decline as the Epilogue to Communist Modernization: The Case of a Socialist ‘Model’ Village
- Chapter 6 No Wealth without Networks and Personal Trust: New Capitalist Agrarian Entrepreneurs in the Dobrudzha
- Chapter 7 Inheritance after Restitution: Modern Legislative Norms and Customary Practices in Rural Bulgaria
- Chapter 8 Rural, Urban and Rurban: Everyday Perceptions and Practices
- Chapter 9 The Koprivshtitsa Festival: From National Icon to Globalized Village Event
- Chapter 10 Fashioning Markets: Brand Geographies in Bulgaria
- Chapter 11 Greek (Ad)ventures in Sofia: Economic Elite Mobility and New Cultural Hierarchies at the Margins of Europe
- List of Contributors
Chapter 6 - No Wealth without Networks and Personal Trust: New Capitalist Agrarian Entrepreneurs in the Dobrudzha
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Rural—Urban Relations in a Global Age
- Chapter 3 Every Village, a Different Story: Tracking Rural Diversity in Bulgaria
- Chapter 4 Smugglers into Millionaires: Marginality and Shifting Cultural Hierarchies in a Bulgarian Border Town
- Chapter 5 Rural Decline as the Epilogue to Communist Modernization: The Case of a Socialist ‘Model’ Village
- Chapter 6 No Wealth without Networks and Personal Trust: New Capitalist Agrarian Entrepreneurs in the Dobrudzha
- Chapter 7 Inheritance after Restitution: Modern Legislative Norms and Customary Practices in Rural Bulgaria
- Chapter 8 Rural, Urban and Rurban: Everyday Perceptions and Practices
- Chapter 9 The Koprivshtitsa Festival: From National Icon to Globalized Village Event
- Chapter 10 Fashioning Markets: Brand Geographies in Bulgaria
- Chapter 11 Greek (Ad)ventures in Sofia: Economic Elite Mobility and New Cultural Hierarchies at the Margins of Europe
- List of Contributors
Summary
At first sight the title of our chapter may seem paradoxical and controversial, especially for a reader familiar with Francis Fukuyama's work. The main thesis of this Japanese American author in his famous book Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity is that, from a socioeconomic standpoint, individual and social prosperity cannot be created on the basis of purely personal trust relationships. as they are essentially located in the private sphere. According to Fukuyama. individual and social prosperity can only emerge in conditions of impersonal and systemic trust anchored in the social organizations and institutions that make up the public sphere. For such organizational structures, the neoliberal thinker Fukuyama focuses mainly on the democratic institutions of civil society (alliances, associations, NGOs. parties, unions, etc.), but also the state's institutions should not be left out as instruments of legitimate authority. Fukuyama's theoretical model posits an ideal-typical division between ‘high-trust’ and ‘low-trust’ societies. Although this dichotomy is rhetorically effective and to a degree scientifically plausible, from an anthropological or ethnographic standpoint it should not be received uncritically as it contains obvious as well as hidden ideas of an ethnocentric nature which should not be unquestionably accepted. Despite the undeniable heuristic significance of Fukuyama's theoretic framework, anthropologists ought to be critical of the evident ‘Orientalist’ (Said 1978) and respectively ‘Balkanist’ (Todorova 1997) connotations inherent to the dichotomy of high-trust versus low-trust societies.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Global VillagesRural and Urban Transformations in Contemporary Bulgaria, pp. 105 - 122Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013