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What is Really Social Capital? A Critical Review

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Abstract

This paper provides a critical review of the burgeoning literature on social capital. While our focus is primarily on social capital’s place in economics, we do consider its broader social science context. In recent years, social capital literature has produced many insights, however, a number of conceptual and empirical problems remain. In this setting, we trace a panorama of ideas of the principal theorists of social capital for then focusing us on the numerous critics whose it is the subject. Finally we provide recommendations for a prudent use of the concept.

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Notes

  1. Studies on social networks focused on the characteristics, the structure and the nature of the relationships: elements that characterize individuals.

  2. The two forms mutually reinforcing each other.

  3. The general idea, although not taking up by Putnam, is that of de Tocqueville (1986) according to which associations enable individuals to mobilize the power or means they can not have alone.

  4. It may be noted here that a change from a situation of personalized confidence/reciprocity to a situation of generalized trust/reciprocity is favourable for exchange because it reduces the cost of seeking information on the credibility of a partner.

  5. According to Putnam, social capital has declined in the USA for several reasons, the principal ones being the development of the female work, the increase in geographical mobility, the demographic changes such as divorces, fewer children, the disappearance of small and independent retailers, the development of individualized leisure, and especially the popularization of television. Certain studies, like that of Costa and Kahn (2001) seem to confirm an evolution into this direction, whereas others like that of Bianchi and Robinson (1997) are much more uncertain.

  6. As an example of cost for those who are outside the social interaction place, we can cite the case of organized crime.

  7. In addition, it may be noted here that some financial products deemed as capital are not either alienable, such as life insurances.

  8. For example, according to Ostrom (2000), what differentiates social capital from other forms of capital is that: 1) it does not wear out with use; 2) it is not easy to measure; 3) it is hard to build through external intervention; 4) national and regional government institutions strongly affect the level and type of social capital available to individuals to pursue long-term development efforts.

  9. An argument which can also be included to explain the formation of patronage in the Roman society or feudalism during the Middle Ages.

  10. Theory asserting that these entities are merely different facets of a same object.

  11. Public or private organization, established in a given society to meet a particular need, which have an official or legal value.

  12. Even when the group function is non economic.

  13. To explain this phenomenon, Durlauf and Fafchamps (2004) propose to consider that what makes the attraction of clubs and networks disappears when a certain threshold of “generalized” trust is reached.

  14. These factors are also used by Putnam (1995) to explain the social capital decline in the United States.

  15. For certain authors as Cattell (2001) and Hyden (2001), social capital formed by these modes of association is above all exclusive and grows organically from the social dynamics which characterize the society.

  16. In this respect, Fischer (2001) finds very little coherence among the different indicators of social capital used in the General Social Surveys (1972–1999): weak correlations and sometimes opposite trends.

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  1. CERDI – CNRS, Université d’Auvergne, Clermont 1, France

    Thomas G. Poder

  2. UETMIS – CHUS, Hôpital Fleurimont, 3001, 12e Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke, J1H 5N4, Quebec, Canada

    Thomas G. Poder

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Poder, T.G. What is Really Social Capital? A Critical Review. Am Soc 42, 341–367 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-011-9136-z

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