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“Social bond” is an expression very frequently heard today and referring particularly to the local level, used by many different voices from both the public policy domain as well as from academic research. The profusion of this kind of discourse gives evidence both of an epistemological evolution, characterized by the development of a relational and subjectivist paradigm, and of a mindset modification conferring a minimum of credibility to public discourse itself. In this way a set of values and representations are introduced, expressed in a constructed lexicon of associated terms which recur in arguments as they are developed, the current authority of which seems to derive from its capacity to refer to contemporary social ills as much as from the construction of a rhetoric of comprehension, indeed even of compassion.