Social Capital

174 Pages·2004·1.67 MB·English

by  John Field

SOCIAL CAPITAL
The term ‘social capital’ is a way of conceptualising the intangible resources
of community, shared values and trust upon which we draw in daily life.
It has achieved considerable international currency in the social sciences
through the very different work of Pierre Bourdieu in France and James
Coleman and Robert Putnam in the United States and has been taken up
within politics and sociology as a means of explaining the decline of social
cohesion and community values in many western societies.
Social Capital is one of the first full overviews of the intense debate
surrounding this subject. This clear and comprehensive introduction
explains the theoretical underpinning of the subject, the empirical work
that has been done to explore its operation, and the effect that it has had
on policy making, particularly within such international governmental
bodies as the World Bank and the European Commission.
John Field is Director of the Division of Academic Innovation and
Continuing Education at the University of Stirling.
KEY IDEAS
SERIESEDITOR: PETER HAMILTON, THEOPENUNIVERSITY, MILTONKEYNES
Designed to compliment the successful Key Sociologists, this series covers
the main concepts, issues, debates and controversies in sociology and the
social sciences. The series aims to provide authoritative essays on central
topics of social science, such as community, power, work, sexuality,
inequality, benefits and ideology, class, family, etc. Books adopt a strong
individual ‘line’ constituting original essays rather than literary surveys,
and for lively and original treatments of their subject matter. The books
will be useful to students and teachers of sociology, political science,
economics, psychology, philosophy and geography.
Citizenship Old Age
KEITH FAULKS JOHN VINCENT
Class Postmodernity
STEPHEN EDGELL BARRY SMART
Community Racism – second edition
GERARD DELANTY ROBERT MILES AND
MALCOLM BROWN
Consumption
ROBERT BOCOCK Risk
DEBORAH LUPTON
Culture
CHRIS JENKS Sexuality
JEFFREY WEEKS
Globalization – second edition
MALCOLM WATERS Social Capital
JOHN FIELD
Lifestyle
DAVID CHANEY Transgression
CHRIS JENKS
Mass Media
PIERRE SORLIN The Virtual
ROB SHIELDS
Moral Panics
KENNETH THOMPSON
SOCIAL CAPITAL
John Field
First published 2003
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2003 John Field
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-63408-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-63748-8 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–25753–0 HB
ISBN 0–415–25754–9 PB
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
Introduction: what is social capital and why
does it matter? 1
How do networks make things happen? 2
Norms and networks in classical social theory 5
Interest in social capital 7
Aims of the book 9
1 From metaphor to concept 11
Bourdieu 13
Coleman 20
Putnam 29
What have the social capital classics added? 40
2 Exploring the power of networks 44
Social capital and education 45
Connections in the economy 50
Benefits for health and well-being 57
Crime and deviancy 60
Refining the concept: reciprocity and trust 62
Towards a differentiated conception 65
3 A walk on the dark side 71
Social capital and inequality 74
The perverse effects of social capital 82
Social capital’s dark side 89
4 Social capital in a (post)modern world 91
Active democratic citizenship 93
Atomised connections in cyberspace 101
The end of communism 106
Family and intimate ties 109
Social capital in risk society: flexible friends? 112
vi contents
5 Social capital as policy 115
Why develop policies for social capital? 117
Measuring social capital 123
Operationalising policies for social capital 126
Can governments create social capital? 134
Conclusion 136
REFERENCES 146
INDEX 161
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Connections count, and many friends, colleagues and acquaintances have
helped me develop my ideas about social capital. Much of this learning
has been profoundly rewarding in itself. Trust and reciprocity are not
just conceptual abstractions; they help make life rather more secure and
pleasurable than it would otherwise have been. Equally, of course, at some
stages in life I have found myself learning lessons about trust, reciprocity
and loss that I could well have lived without. Many of us discover at some
stage that while our closest and most valued ties often lend meaning and
affirmation to our existence, they can also prove the cause of deep pain.
Such everyday lessons – positive and negative – are writ large in our wider
society. They have particularly informed the final chapter of this book, in
which I reflect on what we might do as a society to promote forms of social
capital that are appropriate for our own times.
Writing this book has benefited from countless exchanges with friends
and colleagues, providing me with very particular examples of the ways
that our connections are resources. Thoughtful conversations with Peter
Alheit, Julie Allan, Colin Bell, Loraine Blaxter, Jaswinder Dhillon, Kathryn
Ecclestone,Richard Edwards, Ian Falk, Tom Healy, Christina Hughes, Sue
Kilpatrick, William Maloney, Michael Strain, Lorna Unwin and Bill
Williamson made me look again at some of my weaker ideas. From Gudrun
Geirsdottir I gleaned a fine Icelandic proverb. Pat Ainley and Tom Steele
have tried to persuade me that social capital is a dead end or worse; they
have failed (so far) but I have learned in the process. John Scott read an
early draft and provided valuable feedback. Above all, I owe an enormous
amount to three colleagues – Steve Baron, Tom Schuller and Simon Szreter
– with whom I worked on the remarkably enjoyable seminar series on social
capital sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, which ran
during 2000 and 2001 in Cambridge, Glasgow, London and Warwick.
These seminars built social capital as well as debating it, and I have lost
track of the debts which I owe to the participants. Tom and Steve were also
wonderful co-editors of a book of critical essays on social capital.

INTRODUCTION:
WHAT IS SOCIAL CAPITAL AND
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
The theory of social capital is, at heart, most straightforward. Its central
thesis can be summed up in two words: relationships matter. By making
connections with one another, and keeping them going over time, people
are able to work together to achieve things that they either could not achieve
by themselves, or could only achieve with great difficulty. People connect
through a series of networks and they tend to share common values with
other members of these networks; to the extent that these networks
constitute a resource, they can be seen as forming a kind of capital. As well
as being useful in its immediate context, this stock of capital can often be
drawn on in other settings. In general, then, it follows that the more people
you know, and the more you share a common outlook with them, the richer
you are in social capital. This, in a nutshell, is the thesis that this book
explores.
The concept of social capital is increasingly influential. It has taken off
like a bushfire in the social sciences, it has started to catch on in policy
circles, and it has also flared up from time to time in the mass media. While
there is a spreading literature on the concept, though, there has so far been
nothing in the way of an extended introduction. This book sets out to fill
this gap. It gives an overview of the main ideas of the three outstanding