What Do We Know about Social Cohesion: The Research Perspective of the Federal Government's Social Cohesion Research Network

This paper reports on recent research in the Federal Government on social cohesion. Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper. Willingness to cooperate means they freely choose to form partnerships and have a reasonable chance of realizing goals, because others are willing to cooperate and share the fruits of their endeavours equitably. Social cohesion contributes to a wide variety of social outcomes such as health and economic prosperity. Part I of the paper relates how Federal Government researchers came to be interested in social cohesion. Part II discusses the concept of social cohesion. Part III presents a model of society to demonstrate how social cohesion works. Part IV concludes by discussing the policy significance of the model.