What is Social Capital? A Comprehensive Review of the Concept (original) (raw)
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The concept of social capital : a critical review
In about 10 years,an impressive quantity of literature has developed, starting in the United-States, on and about the concept of "social capital". Its promoters build on the idea that social relations, shared norms and values and trust facilitate coordination and cooperation between individuals or groups. The idea is not new. What is new is to consider sociability and associational participation, norms, shared values and trust, as a stock of capital at the macro-social level, and to raise it as a unique principle able to explain multiple economic and social phenomenon. The promotion of the "concept", first taken in charge by Robert Putnam, relayed by the World Bank and the OECD, praises the positive -even decisive -impact of "high levels" of social capital on well-being, economic growth, health, educational performance, government efficiency, security and so on. If the concept remains rather vague, the outlines, combining the promise of a capital which is costless and benefits to all, and the idea that the "social" has a value, may seem attractive. Nevertheless, problems appear when empirical studies show that social capital can have contradictory effects at different levels, or according to the indicators used as its measures; in the perspective of public policies, the unfortunate consequence is that it leads to conficting prescriptions. But if we are to follow the promoters, this is only one more good reason for the research to go on, especially in order to find the right indicators of social capital. This paper proposes to discuss the interest of an implementation of the concept as an analytical category and as a statistical category.
Social capital: a road map of theoretical frameworks and empirical limitations
2013
The general idea of social capital is that relationships matter. In this sense, trust, cooperation and reciprocity involved in these relationships can have a positive impact on the wealth of the society by reducing transaction costs, facilitating collective actions and lowering opportunistic behaviour. This work sheds light on the different theoretical and empirical problems that a scholar is likely to face in dealing with social capital research and analysis. We propose a critical road map of the social capital theories and applications for a general audience, non-users included, with particular attention to the works of political and social economists. We provide a critical debate on the different definitions and measures produced, the theoretical frameworks developed and the empirical techniques adopted so far in the analysis of the impact of social capital on socioeconomic outcomes. We stress on the limitations of these techniques and we suggest some basic strategies to reduce the magnitude of these limitations.
Social Capital: A Roadmap of Theoretical and Empirical Contributions and Limitations
Journal of Economic Issues, 2016
The general idea of social capital is that relationships matter. In this sense, trust, cooperation and reciprocity involved in these relationships can have a positive impact on the wealth of the society by reducing transaction costs, facilitating collective actions and lowering opportunistic behavior. This work sheds light on the different theoretical and empirical problems that a scholar is likely to face in dealing with social capital research and analysis. We propose a critical road map of the social capital theories and applications for a general audience, nonusers included, with particular attention to the works of political and social economists. We provide a critical debate on the different definitions and measures produced, the theoretical frameworks developed and the empirical techniques adopted so far in the analysis of the impact of social capital on socioeconomic outcomes. We turn to the limitations of these techniques and we suggest some basic strategies to reduce the magnitude of these limitations.
A Review of Social Capital as a Concept
ABUAD Journal of Social and Management Sciences, 2023
There is a debate about what social 'capital' as a concept entails. This review article is a contribution to that debate. The article explores the various ways the concept of social capital has been used in the literature. The first is that users of the concept employ it to refer to social norms and moral values and the roles they play in society. This first conceptualisation of social capital emphasises the importance that values and norms have for the effectiveness of the various forms of capital. The thinking is that if moral values and social norms are lacking in guiding the operation of the other forms of capital, little or no progress will be made in society. The next perspective is that social capital is generated in people's daily interaction in the community. This view attaches importance to associational life in society. Finally, the paper evaluates the debate about whether social capital can be regarded as a 'capital', given the fact that other forms of capital are tangible while social capital is intangible. It is demonstrated in this paper that inasmuch as other types of capital are valuable because they are able to generate expected outcomes, so is social capital a 'capital' because it enables the achievement of certain goals in society.
European Journal of Government and Economics, 2017
The concept of social capital has received increasing attention in recent years. The complexity and multidimensionality that accompany the variable of social capital have caused confusion and ambiguity. This article presents a synthesis of social capital in three perspectives. From the individualistic or micro-social perspective, social capital is an "individual resource" that consists of the networks of relations of the focal subject that bring it a set of instrumental and expressive resources. For the communitarian or meso-social perspective, social capital is a "community resource" or set of attributes and properties present in the social structure (shared norms and values, private trust, closure ...) that facilitate its functioning and collective action. Finally, for the macrosocial perspective, social capital is a "macro-social and macro-institutional resource" resting on aspects such as civic-mindedness, general trust and social cohesion, which favors the functioning of the economy and society in general.
2024
Social capital can be defined as the sum of resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual. We distinguish three schools of thought on social capital: the first views it alongside other forms of capital - economic, cultural, symbolic - to explain social stratification, highlighting the benefits of network membership; the second merges sociological and economic perspectives, emphasizing the functions and outcomes of social capital for individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions; the third focuses on societal features such as trust, norms, and networks that enhance societal efficiency. Further, this paper explores developments in social capital theory, demonstrates specific applications, and suggests areas for future research.
Social capital: Measurement and consequences
Canadian Journal of Policy Research, 2001
This paper starts with a discussion of definitions of social capital, then turns to issues in measurement, and finally, presents some evidence on the consequences of social capital. In the last five years, I have been working exclusively on some specific and perhaps unique problems about social capital in the United States, so all of my examples are going to be drawn from the United States experience. I don't want to be interpreted as saying these trends are common to all OECD countries. It is just that the United States has been the main focus of my research for the past five years. There are, among those of us who work in the area, some marginal differences in terms of exactly how we would define social capital, but Michael Woolcock correctly says in his paper that among the people who are working in this field, there has been a visible convergence, definitionally, toward something like the definition he offers. The central idea of social capital, in my view, is that networks and the associated norms of reciprocity have value. They have value for the people who are in them, and they have, at least in some instances, demonstrable externalities, so that there are both public and private faces of social capital. I am focussing largely on the external returns, the public returns to social capital, but I think that is not at all inconsistent with the idea that there are also private returns. The same is no doubt true in the area of human capital, i.e. there are simultaneously public and private returns. In the great debate of the two Cambridges about "capital", the focus of much of the discussion was on whether physical capital was homogeneous enough to be susceptible to aggregate measurement. There is room for similar debates about human and social capital. Obviously there are many different forms of physical capital. For instance, both an egg-beater and an aircraft carrier enter into the American national accounts as little bits of physical capital, and yet they are not interchangeable. Try fixing your morning omelette with an aircraft carrier, or try attacking the Serbs with an eggbeater. The same thing is true about social capital. Social capital is certainly far from homogeneous.
Social Capital Revisited: Concept and Measurement
Sosyoloji araştırmaları dergisi, 2021
The concept of social capital implies to the benefit of social relations for individuals and community. The complicated structure of social capital led the theoreticians to see it from varying aspects and forms, and the researchers to measure it in many different ways. Examining the existing studies in the literature, it is understood that while measuring social capital, a definition of the aspects and the level of analysis appropriate to the social capital theory that is employed is necessary. In this context, the researcher has to decide the level of the research and the theory that lays behind the necessary assumptions for the study. It is essential to consider both structural and cognitive aspects of social capital for its measurement. Regarding the data sources that are utilized in the existing empirical studies, time-use surveys provide a broad scale information that enable to investigate the structural aspect of social capital-which might be observed via objective methods, but it is limited for the cognitive aspect-which might be better observed via subjective methods. Hence, concertedly utilised quantitative and qualitative methods would provide the broadest and convenient data and information about social capital.