Can small scholarly communities, such as the Swedish political science community, survive in an academic world often said to be dominated not only by American research but also by American concerns? Does the political science profession in Sweden, a small country with a rather odd (!) language, few political science departments, and few members of the national political science association, have a unique independent Swedish identity - or is current Swedish political science a product of international - mostly American - influences? And how have these patterns of influence varied over time? Recently, a Swedish Research Council report claimed that political science in Sweden was heavily influenced by the alleged American hegemony within the discipline (Hydén, et al, 2002: 15). The report did not, however, produce any data on the extent to which the Swedish political science community is influenced by research from the US or other parts of the world.

This article has two main aims: (1) to examine how, in the context of ‘globalisation’, transnational, international and domestic processes and practices interact; and (2) to consider what this implies for the study of comparative politics. Given the widely differing political, economic, technological and cultural characteristics of the world's 190-plus states, it is hardly surprising that the impact of international and transnational actors is likely to differ from country to country. In other words, while all states’ domestic arrangements will, to some degree, be affected by the impact of international and transnational actors, the impact will vary from country to country.

One of the key developments in recent years has been growth in the numbers of states. Migdal (1997: 210) notes that in ‘what used to be the Third World and the communist bloc, the late 1980s and the 1990s have brought the simultaneous disintegration of existing states and the birth of new ones.

We have entered an age of rapid and deep transformation of our learning environment. As with many other technological revolutions, facts are coming to us before we can understand and explain them. Computers have suddenly appeared on every university desk, and have rapidly substituted the typewriter and the pen as the dominant writing technology. Within a decade, we have moved from printed language, a five-century old technology, to electronic language. To be sure, words written through a computer can also be printed; yet, thanks to the spread of the Internet, a larger proportion of written words never get to see the black of ink. In any case, whatever the final output, the way our minds work when we deal with word processing programmes is radically different from the way they work with conventional print. And this inevitably influences the process of thought. We are all aware that we are facing dramatic change, yet very little time is available to investigate its nature and implications.

In 1993, Robert Putnam published his path-breaking study on government efficiency in contemporary Italy. Looking for reasons why Northern Italy outperformed its Southern counterpart on every single indicator of government efficiency, Putnam found only one convincing culprit: Southern Italy's much lower stock of social capital - networks and voluntary associations, social trust and norms of reciprocity. Two years later, in 1995, Putnam used his Italian insights to predict the future of American democracy: shrinking stocks of social capital would progressively undermine both the efficiency and the quality of democratic governance in the United States.

From that moment onwards, the issue of social capital became one of the most lively debated and contested topics of political science on both sides of the Atlantic. Putnam's thesis was provocative and far reaching enough to prompt large numbers of researchers to test the validity of the social capital thesis for their own countries, to examine the validity of its underlying assumptions and to search for empirical substantiation of its major hypotheses.

A bond of trust with someone gives us confidence that they mean what they say when they promise to cooperate. The ‘standard’ account of trust presumes that trust depends on information and experience. Offe (1999) states: ‘Trust in persons results from past experience with concrete persons. If Jane trusts Bill to keep his word and if Bill trusts Jane to keep her word, they can reach an agreement to cooperate that leaves both of them better off.

If Jane and Bill were strangers, they would have no basis for trusting each other. Moreover, a single encounter would not suffice to develop trust. Even after they get better acquainted, their mutual trust will be limited to what they know about each other. Jane and Bill might feel comfortable lending each other a modest amount of money, but Bill wouldn't trust Jane to paint his house and Jane would not trust Bill to repair her roof without knowledge of their respective skills in these kind of jobs (Hardin, 1992: 154; Coleman, 1990: 109; Misztal, 1996: 121ff.).

The routine finding of a positive relation between participation in voluntary associations and civic values and attitudes can be explained by two different causal mechanisms. On the one hand, some authors stress a process of self-selection: those who already have a more civic value pattern will be over-represented in voluntary associations, but their attitudes are not necessarily influenced by interaction within the associations (Stolle, 2001; Uslaner, 2002). Other authors emphasise socialisation effects: because of the interaction with like minded others, members of associations are imbued with more social and cooperative attitudes. In this view, associations function as ‘a learning school of democracy’ (Putnam, 1993; Hooghe, 2003).

While the socialisation approach seems to dominate the social capital literature (cfr. Putnam, 2000, 2002), the empirical research currently available does not fully support the assumption that associational involvement has strong socialisation effects. Although people who are members of associations are usually more trusting and tolerant, so far no one has convincingly demonstrated that social participation experiences have a strong independent effect on civic attitudes.

Of the many discussions concerning the concept of social capital in recent years, the relation between membership in associations and the development of trust is one of the most controversial. The focus of these discussions has been the development of social trust inside associations. The problem of the failure to identify the relevant mechanisms involved in the alleged relation between participation in associations, and social trust, has been much discussed in the literature on social capital (Levi, 1996: 47-48). The effects of different types of association in the development of social trust, or trust in strangers, have also occasionally been analysed (Stolle and Rochon, 1998: 49; Putnam, 2000: 22-23). Much less frequently analysed, however, has been the development of particularised trust, that is, trust between known people, in this case trust between the members of associations themselves.

It has been commonly assumed that the development of particularised trust inside associations is a relatively uncontroversial issue: it is simply created as a by-product of participation in the everyday life of the association. In this paper, we will argue instead that the development of trust among the members of an association (and, therefore, the development of social capital) depends on the type of internal organisation of the association in question.

With the latest wave of democratisation, much scholarly research into democratic transitions has focused on the role of social capital in the transition process. An important part of the democratic reforms has been the institutionalisation of civil society, characterised by networks of associations that continue the process of the consolidation of democracy. This article examines the role of social capital in building support for democracy among transitional societies in Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) and Latin America (LA). The specific question is whether or not involvement in voluntary organisations explains support for democratisation. Two dimensions of political support are examined: first, support for democracy as an ideal concept, and second, support for democratic institutions, meaning the government, political parties, parliament, and the legal system.

Social capital is a community resource based on individuals’ shared values, attitudes, behaviour and commitment to the community (Brehm and Rahn, 1997).

This article explores the differing potential of voluntary associations to build bonding and bridging social capital. Our argument is that voluntary associations do not always have the same effects, and thus that there is a need for further theoretical and empirical differentiation. Using data from a representative German population study carried out in June 2001 and coordinated by the Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy project, we conduct an empirical test of the validity of the theoretical differentiation between the two types. Our attempt to assign bonding and bridging capacities to voluntary associations seems to be supported. The analysis focuses on West Germany whose vibrant voluntary sector has proved to be an important factor underlying the sustainable societal development of democratic attitudes and behaviour in recent decades.

Scientific political research now stresses the importance of differentiating between bridging (inclusive) and bonding (exclusive) social capital. Putnam (2000) argues that depending on the characteristics of the available social capital, one can either expect cooperation, generalised trust and institutional effectiveness, or sectarian tendencies, corruption and ethnocentrism.

Part one made suggestions about doing market research on where to publish, and described the review process. We start Part two with the most obvious next stage: rejection.

So you have sent your paper off and wait expectantly for a letter from the editor. Good journals usually send a note - by e-mail mostly these days - acknowledging receipt. Many of the lesser journals do not. How long do you have to wait before you get an e-mail or letter stating whether or not you have been accepted? It can be anything from two weeks to two years, but expect a wait of around three to four months.