Social Cohesion in East-Asia - A Comparison with other Asian and Western Societies

Concerns that the social fabric of society is fraying is widespread in contemporary societies – in the West, and in the rapidly modernizing Asian societies. This talk reports key findings from a research project which has explored social cohesion in 22 Asian societies with the help of the Social Cohesion Radar. Within this framework, social cohesion is defined as a specifically “social” quality of societies which comprises the strength of bonds among members of society, people’s emotional connectedness to the larger community and to national institutions, and their concern for the common good. The project further investigated the macro-social conditions that strengthen or undermine social cohesion in Asia, and the impact living in a cohesive society has for people’s subjective well-being. The talk has three main parts: The first part gives an overview about the pan-Asian study. The second part focusses on peculiarities of East-Asian societies vis-à-vis other Asian societies. The third and final part explores the association of economic, social, political, and cultural conditions with cohesion in a comparison of Asian and Western societies, with the aim to find out whether breeding conditions for social cohesion are universal, or particularistic.

Jan Delhey is a comparative sociologist who is mainly interested in societal quality of life (trust, social cohesion) and individual well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, and status anxiety).
Publication

Delhey, Jan, Klaus Boehnke, Georgi Dragolov, Zsófia S. Ignácz, Mandi Larsen, Jan Lorenz and Michael Koch. 2018. "Social Cohesion and Its Correlates: A Comparison of Western and Asian Societies." Comparative Sociology 17(3-4):426-55.