Social Capital

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Social Capital
Paul Blokker
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Overview Class

• Social Capital
• Main themes
• - Conceptualization and origins of the notion of
  social capital
• - Three different theorizations of social
  capital (Coleman, Putnam, Bourdieu)
• - The role of and problems regarding social
  capital in pluralistic societies.

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Overview Course

• Embeddedness
• 3. Relevance
• Social capital as necessary condition for
  successful local development, social integration,
  and political participation
• Attention for significance of social ties as well
  as cultural underpinnings for local development
• Understanding of ambiguities of social capital.

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Overview Course

• Social Capital
• Relevant literature of the reading list
• Bourdieu, P.
• Trigilia, C.
• Woolcock, M.
• Castiglione, D.
• Fennema, M. and J. Tillie

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1Social Capital A Definition
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1. Social Capital

• A Conceptualization of Social Capital
• (see Castiglione 2008, chapter 7)
• - The intellectual origins of the concept of
  social capital are wide-ranging
• - Human capital (Gary Becker)
• - Civicness (Alexis de Tocqueville)
• - Community (Tönnies)
• - Social norms of cooperation (Durkheim,
  Weber, Simmel)

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1. Social Capital

• A Conceptualization of Social Capital
• Social capital can be seen as indicating an
  approach, rather than a concept
• The notion of social capital fruitfully combines
  various strands of research that pose afresh the
  issue of the nature of the social order
  (Castiglione 2008 183).

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1. Social Capital

• A Conceptualization of Social Capital
• Social capital addresses 3 important questions
• 1. Sociality. The motivational drives of human
  behaviour and action in social contexts
• 2. Sociability. Concerned with peoples tendency
  to associate with others or in groups
• 3. Social embeddedness. Mechanisms of social
  integration and reproduction.

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1. Social Capital

• Sociality (see in particular Coleman)
• The idea is that rationality is at the basis of
  social action, but is neither completely
  free-standing (as in under-socialized views of
  rational action), nor completely predetermined by
  social norms and structures (as in
  over-socialized accounts of behaviour).
• Sociality is based on the ideas that 1) actors
  internalize norms, and adhere to obligations and
  social structures for cooperation, and 2)
  structures are not only constraints but also
  resources for self-interested actions.

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1. Social Capital

• 2. Sociability (see in particular Putnam)
• The problem is about the impulse for people to
  enter in more close relation or association with
  others.
• Sociability entails a different way of explaining
  how social capital works
• - not on the basis of a functional account of a
  resource for instrumental action,
• - but in a culturalist and structuralist view
  of social capital as resources for cooperation
  and democracy (associations) and social
  relations of trust (community).

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1. Social Capital

• 3. Social Embeddedness (see in particular
  Bourdieu)
• Social capital as one form of capital among
  others (human capital, cultural capital, economic
  capital).
• Capital because an investment of time one makes
  in social relations, or the kind of trust one
  puts in others.

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1. Social Capital

• 3. Social Embeddedness (see in particular
  Bourdieu)
• Social capital as a theory of social
  reproduction, similar to the (Marxist)
  interpretation of capital as social relation,
  rather than a material thing.
• Bourdieus theory of social capital underlines
  the importance of social capital as the
  accumulation of past relations, which contribute
  to determine the future.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• A. James Coleman
• Coleman endorses rational choice idea of social
  action, but rejects extreme individualistic views
• Social capital is a resource for action
• Coleman rejects under-socialized understanding of
  social action (extreme rational choice) and
  over-socialized view (structuralism/sociology)

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• A. James Coleman
• Colemans aim is to import the economists
  principle of rational action for use in the
  analysis of social systems proper... and to do so
  without discarding social organization in the
  process (1988 97).
• Social capital is defined by its function
  enabling social action
• Social capital consists of some aspect of social
  structures and facilitates certain actions.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• James Coleman
• Social capital inheres neither in singular actors
  nor in physical goods.
• Social capital is part of the structure of
  relations between actors and among actors (incl.
  organizations).
• Functional definition social capital can take
  variety of forms, as long as it facilitates
  distinct action (cultural ties, organizational
  linkages, civic culture)

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• James Coleman
• Social capital includes
• a. Obligations and expectations (cf. reciprocity)
• b. Information channels
• c. Norms and sanctions

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• James Coleman
• Social capital needs some level of closure of a
  social structure (e.g. in effectively imposing
  norms generating trust)
• Social capital often derives from original
  organizations set up for a specific purpose,
  which lasts beyond the original goal (e.g.
  neighbourhood association counter-example
  Solidarnosc)

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• Putnam focuses on the relation between democracy
  and civil society.
• His main concern is the importance of a strong
  and active civil society to the consolidation of
  democracy (as in de Tocqueville).
• The idea is that the quality of public life and
  the performance of social institutions are
  powerfully influenced by norms and networks of
  civic engagement

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• The argument is that social bonds are crucial for
  both successful democratic societies as well as
  for socio-economic modernization.
• Putnam found in a study of local government in
  Italy that the quality of governance was
  determined by longstanding traditions of civic
  engagement (or its absence).

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• Preconditions of a successful democracy include
  according to Putnam - voter turnout, newspaper
  readership, membership in choral societies and
  football clubs, in other words civic engagement
  and social bonds.
• Social capital, according to Putnam, consists of
  features of social organization such as
  networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate
  coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• Three main components
• a. Trust
• b. Social norms and obligations
• c. Social networks and associations.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• 1. Networks of civic engagement foster norms of
  generalized reciprocity and encourage the
  emergence of social trust
• 2. Networks facilitate coordination and
  communication, and amplify reputations, allowing
  collective action dilemmas to be resolved
• 3. Networks reduce incentives for opportunism
• 4. Networks are grounded in traditions of
  collaboration
• 5. Networks broaden participants sense of the
  self.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• Putnams interpretation builds on Colemans
  social capital as a resource for action but in
  a culturalist interpretation
• Thus, for Putnam, the essence is the notion of
  civicness, a disposition to act in a way that
  takes as its purpose the common good, rather than
  individual self-interest (related to
  republicanism and communitarianism de
  Tocquevilles civic associationism civic
  culture)
• Civic virtue then explains efficiency and
  cohesion of societies.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• B. Robert Putnam
• indicators of social capital include
• - memberships in associations
• - services as officers or committee members in
  organizations
• - club and church attendance
• - union memberships
• - attending exercise classes, health clubs, or
  league bowling
• - trust, honesty and morality

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• According to Bourdieu, the social world is
  accumulated history, and if it is not to be
  reduced to a discontinuous series of
  instantaneous mechanical equilibria between
  agents who are treated as interchangeable
  particles, one must reintroduce into it the
  notion of capital (46).

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Bourdieus focus is on agents or actors and their
  particular positions within society
• Life is not a roulette changing ones social
  status quasi-instantaneously is not possible
• One of the premises of Bourdieus sociology is
  that society is made up out of distinctive social
  fields
• Forms of capital (economic, cultural and social)
  are the core factors defining positions and
  possibilities of the various actors in any field.
  

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Each social field arts, education, law,
  politics, economy - has a distinct profile,
  depending on the proportionate importance within
  it of each of the forms of capital
• The forms of capital controlled by the various
  agents are trumps that define the chances of
  winning the stakes in the game.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Capital accumulated labor (in its materialized
  form or its incorporated, embodied form) which,
  when appropriated on a private, i.e., exclusive
  basis by agents or groups of agents, enables them
  to appropriate social energy in the form of
  reified or living labor.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• - The structure of the distribution of the
  different types and subtypes of capital at a
  given moment in time represents the immanent
  structure of the social world.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Cultural Capital consists of
• An embodied state long-lasting dispositions of
  the mind and body
• An objectified state cultural goods
• An institutionalized state a form of
  objectification (e.g. educational qualifications)

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Social Capital consists of
• the aggregate of the actual or potential
  resources which are linked to possession of a
  durable network of more or less institutionalized
  relationships of mutual acquaintance and
  recognition or in other words, to membership of
  a group which provides each of its members with
  the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a
  credential which entitles them to credit, in
  the various senses of the word.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Social Capital
• The volume of the social capital possessed by a
  given agent thus depends on the size of the
  network of connections he can effectively
  mobilize and on the volume of the capital
  (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his
  own right by each of those to whom he is
  connected.

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource
• C. Pierre Bourdieu
• Social Capital
• Social capital is never completely independent
  of other forms of capital because the exchanges
  instituting mutual acknowledgement presuppose the
  reacknowledgement of a minimum of objective
  homogeneity, and because it exerts a multiplier
  effect on the capital one possesses

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as Collective Resource

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1. Social Capital
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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as interdisciplinary programme

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1. Social Capital

• Social Capital as interdiscplinary programme

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