Constituent Moments: Enacting the People in Postrevolutionary America. By Jason Frank. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. 360p. 89.95cloth,89.95 cloth, 89.95cloth,24.95 paper.Hybrid Constitutions: Challenging Legacies of Law, Privilege, and Culture in Colonial America. By Vicki Hsueh. Durham, NC: Duke Universi... (original) (raw)
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Sociological Inquiry, 2008
This paper offers a meta-analysis that traces the contested meaning and use of social capital in sociological research over the last 18 years by focusing on journal article definitions. We identify six common definitions in use that closely correspond to the original-and in some cases, independent-formulations offered by Hanifan, Putnam, Coleman, Bourdieu, and Granovetter. Drawing from Kuhnian theory, we contend that these definitions illuminate deep divisions between those who understand social capital as a normative "cure-all" (Portes 1998)-in the tradition of Hanifan, Putnam, and Coleman -and those who view it as a resource-in the tradition of Bourdieu and Granovetterthat may be used to create or maintain social inequality. The transition of social capital from preparadigm to paradigm status may potentially involve an integration of these approaches, but this will require greater consideration of power and inequality on the part of normative theorists, who are currently dominating the debate.
Introduction: the project of Rethinking Social Capital
Rethinking Social Capital
More years ago than I care to recount, I returned to the United States from a half-decade working in a refugee camp, preparing refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos for resettlement in my country. After contributing so much time and effort to this population transfer, I wanted to look at the consequences both for the country of resettlement and for the resettled. So, I went back to academia to research. There, I made various contacts, most notably my co-author Min Zhou, who helped me develop my theoretical approach. As I looked at how Southeast Asians were adapting to life in the new homeland, I became aware of two points. First, a study of adaptation had to be future-oriented. Fitting in happens over time and understanding how any set of people fit in means looking at how past and present circumstances lead toward future circumstances. For a group of people, a future orientation meant a focus on the younger members of the group. Second, the study had to incorporate both individuals as members of groups and groups as assemblages of individuals. Neither a purely individual-level approach nor a purely aggregate-level approach would work. People form their lives in collaboration with other people. Following these two points, I came to concentrate my study on young people in a Vietnamese community and on how their relations to their community affected their adaptation to American society through schooling, the primary avenue for entry into modern life. The study of schooling and of how social settings outside of schools affect educational results led me to James S. Coleman, one of the leading lights of the sociology of education and a pioneer in social capital theory. At the same time, I had the privilege of working with one of Coleman's students, the brilliant theorist of social networks Scott Feld. Collaborating with Min Zhou, I was heavily influenced by her work on the role of ethnic niches in enabling survival and mobility for members of new immigrant groups and by the work of her mentor, Alejandro Portes. In developing the ideas of segmented assimilation and ethnic economies, Portes had analyzed, incorporated, and refined the concept of social capital. Moving beyond the study of immigrants alone, I became interested in social capital more generally. Robert S. Putnam's views on social capital as associational engagement appeared on the scene in the second half of the
The Rise and Fall of Social Capital: Requiem for a Theory
We distinguish between social capital theory and social capital political discourse in order to reflect upon their relation with one another and neoliberalism. We claim this analytical distinction is useful to understand the existence of a feedback effect between theory and political discourse. During the 1990s, the connection between social capital theory and neoliberalism has been transposed from academia to political discourse, thus contributing to popularise social capital within the public sphere. Over time, however, rising economic inequalities (exacerbated by the recent economic crises) have demonstrated that the neoliberal political agenda is incompatible with the aim to generate social capital. Focusing on the critical case of Britain, we argue that the rapid demise of the Big Society idea might signal a corresponding decline of social capital theory within academia.
The Rise and Routinization of Social Capital, 1988–2008
Annual Review of Political Science, 2010
Social capital has not merely risen as a social scientific term in the scholarly literature; it has become routinized into everyday conversation and policy discourse across an extraordinarily diverse set of disciplines and substantive domains in countries around the world. It currently enjoys citation counts some 100 times larger than it did just 20 years ago and its popularity continues apace, despite numerous trenchant criticisms. Some of the reasons for the rise and routinization of social capital are explored, especially as they pertain to issues of primary concern to political science, namely collective action, economic development, and democratic governance (issues made especially salient by Putnam 1993 ). While ongoing debate is to be welcomed and rigor from individual scholars required, social capital must continue to do double duty: providing for diverse audiences a simple and intuitively appealing way of highlighting the intrinsic and instrumental importance of social rela...
Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology
Annual Review of Sociology, 1998
This paper reviews the origins and definitions of social capital in the writings of Bourdieu, Loury, and Coleman, among other authors. It distinguishes four sources of social capital and examines their dynamics. Applications of the concept in the sociological literature emphasize its role in social control, in family support, and in benefits mediated by extrafamilial networks. I provide examples of each of these positive functions. Negative consequences of the same processes also deserve attention for a balanced picture of the forces at play. I review four such consequences and illustrate them with relevant examples. Recent writings on social capital have extended the concept from an individual asset to a feature of communities and even nations. The final sections describe this conceptual stretch and examine its limitations. I argue that, as shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability, social capital has a definite place in sociological theory. However, excessive extensions of the concept may jeopardize its heuristic value.
Social Capital: the politico-emancipatory potential of a disputed concept
Third World Quarterly, 2003
Since the middle of the 1990s the concept of social capital has provoked rapidly growing interest. Social theorists, policy makers and those NGOs working on the edge of theory and practice became fascinated with social capital. International organisations like the World Bank, UNDP and the OECD upgraded social capital to the 'missing link' in understanding (under)development. However, it did not take long before the critique cast shadows on this euphoria. Initially the critique was concerned with problems of defining and measuring social capital and its inadequate theoretical elaboration. In a later stage the critique accused social capital of forming part of the anti-politics machine of the post-Washington consensus. Social capital would reflect a point of view in which there was no room for an analysis of power inequality and struggle over access to resources. This article starts with an overview of the most important problems attached to the notion of social capital. The focus is then shifted to the contours of the global political crisis, which acts as a frame of reference for an attempt to reassess the politico-emancipatory potential of social capital.
Rodney E. Hero, Racial Diversity and Social Capital: Equality and Community in America
The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2009
What is the effect of racial diversity on a sense of community and the social and political outcomes central to democracy? Rodney Hero, in his book, Racial Diversity and Social Capital: Equality and Community in America seeks to answer those questions. At the same time, his empirical work of political science is evocative of and supports a model from political philosophy, one Charles Mills has described as a ''racial contract.'' Relying heavily on a model developed by Robert Putnam, Hero argues that an understanding of racial diversity provides a lens through which the assumptions and inadequacies of the social capital interpretation are made explicit. Higher racial diversity is associated with lesser political outcomes, while higher social capital is associated with better political outcomes. Hero seeks to understand and explain this apparent tension by connecting two different interpretations of American social phenomena. Contending that the ''United States has never simultaneously had high formal racial/ethnic equality, much less substantive equality, and high social capital'', he argues that this is a compelling goal (p. 3). Hero's work is a rich source of thoroughly analyzed empirical data and he makes a strong case that the so-called Social Capital Thesis does not reflect the role of racial diversity in social outcomes. When the data are disaggregated by racial groups, social capital is not nearly the factor it is often taken to be. What, then, is the Social Capital Thesis? In Hero's view, Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon and Schuster, 2000), has ''received extraordinary scholarly and popular attention'' and has ''set the standard and become the authoritative source of social capital studies and social outcomes in political science research on the United States'' (p. 21). According to Hero, Putnam's work shows that because of a long tradition of civic