Social Capital

Social capital refers to aspects of social organization, including social networks and norms of reciprocity and trust, that facilitate cooperation and the accom plishment of goals. It is a resource created and accumulated through repeated everyday interactions among and between individuals. It includes not only the social networks and connections among individuals, but also the physical and political context that supports network development and the resources produced. The social aspect of social capital is the interactions between individuals to achieve goals. The capital aspect of social capital is the resources realized as a result of these interactions. Incorporated in this definition are two related, but disparate, notions of social capital. One notion relates to social capital as a structural resource and examines resources that individuals access as a result of their membership in a particular social structure. The other notion refers to the nature and extent of one's involvement in relationships, regardless of context. Both conceptualizations share a focus on the productive potential of social capital; social capital makes possible the achievement of ends that might be impossible in its absence.

The first view of social capital takes a social structural approach, viewing social capital as something realized through interactions embedded in a particular social and political context. In this view, social capital is neither owned nor embodied by particular individuals or groups, but is a structural resource available to individuals for personal gain. Whereas economic and human capital are the property of individuals, social capital is an emergent property of relationships. Unlike other forms of capital, individuals both contribute to social capital and use it, but they cannot own it. This view of social capital includes work by Pierre Bourdieu, who in 1985 employed an instrumental economic approach, using the term to explain social class formation and power. Bourdieu's definition implies the deliberate investment of individuals in a network for later personal use or access with an unspecified obligation of reciprocity. Other work related to this view of social capital stems from James S. Coleman, who provided a similar functional definition in 1988, viewing social capital as the aspect of social structure that facilitates actions of individuals and institutions within social structure. Coleman believed that social capital had the potential to strengthen community social fabric because it builds bonds based on information, trust, and solidarity among people, most often as by-products of their activities.

The second view of social capital theory, popularized by Robert Putnam in 1993, focuses on the norms of trust and reciprocity that emerge from interactions among individuals, regardless of social structural context. Social capital is redefined in this school of thought as an attribute that individuals or groups either possess or do not possess. Here, social capital refers to the collective value of social connections and the inclinations that arise from these relationships to accomplish mutual goals. Individual gain might result, but social capital is more importantly related to the achievement of collective ends. Within this view, [Page 874]three dimensions of social capital are defined as bonding, bridging, and linking. The dimensions are not either-or categories, but differences in the ratio of the three may yield different outcomes. Bonding social capital refers to ties among like individuals who generally share similar sociodemographic characteristics. Bridging social capital refers to ties among dissimilar individuals, while linking social capital refers to one's ties to authority, such as public or private institutions. Bridging and linking social capital are thought to contribute to a productive and well-functioning civil society because both types increase opportunities for civic participation, broaden networks of exchange, and increase access to resources. Bonding social capital, on the other hand, has the potential to create strong ingroup identities, boundaries, and intolerance of outsiders. Bonding social capital may also foster group norms that are so powerful that they restrict individual choice and freedom by disallowing exit from the group and creating strong demands for conformity.

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