Contemporary Regimes of Social Cohesion and Their Institutional Foundations

Abstract

We can now begin to specify more precisely the components of different contemporary regimes of social cohesion.⁶ We do this firstly through a qualitative analysis of the institutions and social attributes that are found in various literatures to be relevant to the production and maintenance of social cohesion in different forms in different countries and regions (or clusters of countries). In Chapter 5, we use statistical analysis of cross-national data on institutional characteristics and social behaviours and attitudes to further specify the regimes and to put existing theories to additional empirical ‘tests’. It should be restated, however, that in the research process itself the qualitative and quantitative analyses have been iterative rather than sequential. Despite the order of presentation here, the quantitative analysis has in fact been constitutive in the development of the theoretical models, modifying our interpretation of various aspects of the theories in the literature we present first.