These findings reaffirm our earlier concerns about the effects of national or international
policies that produce large changes in economic relationships without giving proper attention to
the costs of these changes on extant social capital arrangements. In the case just cited, reform
policies encouraged strengthening of some types of indigenous social capital, personal helping
networks, but actually weakened bridging social capital, village involvement. As Stiglitz points
out, when economic policies summarily weaken existing social institutions the net result is to
Figure 2. Trends in Village and Income Satisfaction
in Rural Russian Villages, 1995-1999
Source: D. O'Brien & V. Patsiorkovski, Russian Village Panel Study
^^“Village Satisfaction
^^^Income Satisfaction
Year
increase popular resistance to broader structural changes in economic institutions. Thus,
ironically, reform policies may in fact increase resistance to reform.45
Our final example of the use of survey field research to understand ways to enhance
indigenous social capital comes from an on-going study of ways in which Tribal Colleges and
Universities can help bridge the gap between the world of Native Americans and the global
economy. A persistent problem facing Native Americans has been what appears to be an unfair
choice between retaining traditional culture and social organization versus participation in the
larger American society and the global economy. The costs of either choice are quite high. If
Native Americans reject mainstream culture and social organization to a great extent they run the
risk of remaining isolated from the material, including health and education, benefits of the
larger society. On the other hand, too much assimilation into the mainstream society may mean
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