Social Capital – an Overview

Susanne Martikke
October 2017
[email protected]
Contents
Contents..................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3
Three main approaches to social capital .................................................................................... 3
Putnam ................................................................................................................................... 3
Bonding versus bridging social capital ................................................................................ 4
Criticisms of Putnam and linking social capital ................................................................... 5
Coleman ................................................................................................................................. 5
Network structure ................................................................................................................ 6
Social capital as a public good ............................................................................................ 6
Bourdieu ................................................................................................................................. 7
Habitus................................................................................................................................ 7
Bridging and bonding and the dark side of social capital ........................................................... 8
Practical implications ................................................................................................................. 9
Use of social capital in research .............................................................................................. 12
The role of intermediaries ..................................................................................................... 12
Third spaces ......................................................................................................................... 13
Methodologies ...................................................................................................................... 14
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 15
References............................................................................................................................... 15

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Introduction
Social capital is a concept that has attracted much attention from policy makers who are
“seeking less costly, non-economic solutions to social problems”(Portes, 1998, p.3). Having
become a “cure-all for the maladies affecting society” (ibid, p.2), social capital was implicit in
Labour’s drive to combat social exclusion on the one hand and the Conservative
Government’s vision of the “Big Society” on the other. This interest in social capital has even
manifested itself in the development of an ONS statistical measure for social capital. Similarly,
the Citizenship Survey is largely an attempt to quantify levels of social capital across
communities.

Social capital can be distinguished from human capital and economic capital and differs from
these in terms of tangibility. Whereas human capital refers to the skills and knowledge of
individuals, i.e. education, economic capital refers to money. Both of these are relatively easy
to measure, in terms of educational achievement and in monetary terms. Social capital, on the
other hand, is about human relationships and networks and there is much controversy over,
firstly, how social capital should be measured and, secondly, what these measurements mean.

The idea of social capital is not new – thinkers like Durkheim, Marx and de Tocqueville have
always pointed out the value of human relationships --, but these ideas became part of
mainstream thinking when Robert Putnam, an American political scientist, published his book
Bowling Alone, which lamented the decline of community life in contemporary America and
proposed the stuff of social capital – social networks, trust and norms – as an antidote.
The policy discourse on social capital conceives of social capital as a relatively straightforward
concept – a simplicity that is no doubt at the root of its widespread appeal, but that is also
misleading in light of the complexities that are involved in detecting, measuring and analysing
social capital.

The following briefing will first outline the main academic approaches to social capital and their
strengths and weaknesses. This will be followed by a short summary of scholarly articles that
have looked at social capital in a voluntary sector/community context.

Three main approaches to social capital

The three dominant approaches to conceptualising social capital have been proposed by
James Coleman, Pierre Bourdieu and Robert Putnam. Putnam is influenced by a host of
writers whom he credits as having written on social capital, but he credits Coleman as the
inventor of the term “social capital”. Putnam’s version is somewhat indebted to Coleman,
whereas Bourdieu’s concept can be seen as more distinct from either of these. As Hollstein
(2013) says, Bourdieu conceptualises social capital as an individual resource, whereas
Putnam sees it as a resource for society overall.

Putnam
The main text that sets out Putnam’s approach is his volume Bowling Alone, in which he tries
to document a decline of social capital in contemporary American society. Social capital for
Putnam consists in social networks and the trust and norms of reciprocity they inspire.
Although he acknowledges the fact that informal associations like friendship build social
capital, he appears to be more inclined to value the type of social capital that he sees
encapsulated in active and involved membership in civic organisations. The social capital he
talks about is characterised by regularity rather than one-off activities; face-to-face contact
rather than distant contact or that mediated by communications technology; and active
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participation rather than vicarious forms of participation. According to Putnam, it is this form of
social capital that is in decline, leading to a situation where “more of our social connectedness
is one shot, special purpose, and self oriented … place-based social capital is being
supplanted by function-based social capital” (Putnam, 2001, p.184).

Inspired by Tocqueville’s view of American democracy being facilitated by civic engagement at

a local level, Putnam sees social capital as something that is generated when people engage
in activities with each other on a regular basis: “Social capital refers to networks of social
connection—doing with. Doing good for other people, however laudable, is not part of the
definition of social capital” (Putnam, 2001, p.117). Putnam’s concept of social capital therefore
seems firmly rooted in geographical place. Although he does give some credit to the Internet
for bringing heterogeneous groups of people together by overcoming constraints of time and
space, he sees the Internet and the possibilities it creates more as a result of social capital,
rather than its cause. In other words, the Internet can be complementary to existing face-to-
face relations, rather than supplanting these.

One of the main arguments of Putnam’s book is that social capital is always better than the
absence of social capital and that social connectedness has beneficial effects for individuals,
e.g. in terms of health and wellbeing, and for society overall. However, within that he
introduces two distinct forms of social capital: bonding and bridging social capital.

Bonding versus bridging social capital

Putnam distinguishes two main forms of social capital: bonding and bridging social capital.
Bonding social capital refers to social networks that are somewhat exclusive and characterised
by the presence of specific reciprocity (doing something for somebody, who returns the
favour). Bonding social capital, for example, is typical of friendship and familial relations, but it
could also be present in closely-knit organisations and groups that are primarily inward looking
and do not readily welcome new members. Bonding social capital is good for inspiring a sense
of solidarity and belonging, but has the disadvantage that it can be somewhat claustrophobic
and stagnant. It is here that the so-called “dark side” of social capital comes in, which Putnam
acknowledges with one chapter in his book. He also says that networks based on bonding
social capital can trigger “illiberal effects” (Putnam 2000, (Putnam, 2001, p.358) and promote
intolerance in their members.

Networks characterised by heterogeneity, on the other hand, can inspire more tolerance in
their members. Bridging social capital connotes social networks that are inclusive and outward
looking. According to Putnam, such networks stimulate broader reciprocity (doing something
without expecting an immediate reward) and are good for accessing information and resources
outside of the group. Bridging social capital is credited with enhancing community cohesion,
because people who form bridges between otherwise unrelated groups can mediate between
these groups and mobilise the individuals within them for common causes.

Putnam notes that there is no strict distinction between bonding and bridging social capital, but
that both can be found in many groups: “bonding and bridging are not ‘either-or’ categories into
which social networks can be neatly divided, but ‘more or less’ dimensions along which we can
compare different forms of social capital” (Putnam, 2001, p.23). Both types of social capital
serve different purposes and may have to be prioritised accordingly. Putnam gives the
example of bussing, whereby racial segregation of schools was supposed to be counteracted
by transporting pupils from black schools to white schools and vice versa. In this example,
racially segregated, but neighbourhood-based schools can be seen as a type of bonding social
capital, which the proponents of racially-integrated schools wanted to break down to create
bridging social capital by bringing racially different others together.

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Putnam notes social networks’ contribution to trust and norms. He distinguishes between “thick
trust” and “thin trust” (Putnam, 2001, p.136). Whereas thick trust is trust in a specific person
based on personal experience, thin trust is based on network density and its ability to foster a
norm of generalised reciprocity within the network. In a community where people know each
other, members thus violate norms at the risk of damaging their reputation.

Apart from these brief references to the way structural characteristics of social networks relate
to their ability to foster social capital, Putnam’s methodology of identifying evidence of social
capital in American society is based on large-scale statistical measures. Measures in the
social capital index he proposes include those on volunteering, number of voluntary and civic
organisations and participation in them, engagement in public affairs, informal sociability and
social trust. This makes the social capital index relatively similar to the measures in the UK
Community Life Survey (formerly Citizenship Survey), which in turn demonstrates how
influential Putnam’s ideas have been among policymakers.

Criticisms of Putnam and linking social capital

In line with his incredible popularity, Putnam has also been criticised quite heavily. Critics
have pointed to the fact that the statistical measures adopted by Putnam as evidence for the
presence of social capital do not allow conclusions about the processes that are at work in
forming social capital and that could explain the beneficial effects on individuals (Crossley,
2008). Other critics have pointed out the circularity of the social capital argument (Portes,
1998; Lichterman, 2006), which does not establish the direction of causality (i.e. does social
capital generate wellbeing or the other way around?). Hollstein also notes that quantitative
attempts to test the concept empirically have proven elusive(Hollstein, 2013). Lichterman
argues that Putnam is oversimplifying social capital (Lichterman 2006) and finds the distinction
between bonding and bridging social capital insufficient for describing how voluntary
organisations may contribute to social capital (ibid, 538).

Others have argued that Putnam’s notion of social capital is missing a political dimension and
have introduced the concept of linking social capital (Szreter, 2002; Woolcock, 1999). Szreter
describes this as a combination of two forms of bridging social capital: empowering poor
people to participate in bridging social capital and inducing the rich and powerful to bridge with
the rest (Szreter, 2002). Szreter refers to Woolcock’s concept of linking capital as
“relationships of exchange, which are established between parties who know themselves not
only to be unalike, as in the case of bridging social capital, but furthermore to be unequal in
their power and their access to resources, as is often the case in development work, where a
range of ‘external’ agencies interact with relatively poor societies and communities” (Szreter,
2002, p.579). Linking social capital in this sense is thus a form of brokerage and makes the
concept of social capital “available to analyse and critique the kind of relationships that can
form across the somewhat artificial state-civil society divide; and also across the various other
supposed dichotomies of ‘public : private,’ ‘state : market,’ ‘formal : informal,’ and ‘rich : poor’”
(Szreter, 2002, p.581).

Coleman
James Coleman (1926-1995) was the American sociologist who is considered to have coined
the term “social capital”. Unlike Putnam, Coleman is not concerned with trying to prove the
existence of social capital in entire communities or even countries through statistical measures
such as number of people who volunteer or number of civic associations. Instead, he is more
interested in exploring how individuals’ behavioural choices may be influenced by the
structural characteristics of social networks. Coleman argues that sociological and economic
explanations of social action are inadequate and proposes a third way (Coleman 1988, S96).

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According to Coleman, sociological approaches are overly concerned with context at the
expense of agency and economic approaches overly concerned with self-interested rational
action at the expense of context and social organisation (Coleman 1988, S96). His approach
suggests importing “the economists’ principle of rational action for use in the analysis of social
systems proper” (Coleman 1988, S97) and seeing individuals as actors who have control over
and interest in resources, of which social capital is one (Coleman 1988, S98).

Social capital, in Coleman’s definition “inheres in the structure of relations between actors and
among actors … not lodged in the actors themselves or in physical implements of production”
(Coleman 1988, S98). As such it is defined by its function, similar to a chair being defined by
its function, and is specific to certain activities, rather than being transferrable. It is neither
good nor bad, helps in achieving certain aims and is the most intangible form of capital,
compared to physical and human capital (Coleman 1988, S98). Coleman also emphasises the
fact that social capital has a public good aspect that sets it apart from physical and human
capital, which are private goods (Coleman 1988, S116).

Network structure
The structure of social relations that social capital inheres in can be captured in the idea of
social networks, that is, the web of relationships between individuals in a given population.
Forms of social capital such as obligation, trust, information channels, norms and sanctions
are facilitated by social network structure. For example, network density or closure, which is
typical for social networks where A is connected to B and C, as well as B and C being
connected to each other helps with creating trust and effective norms (Coleman 1988, S105).
This is similar to Putnam’s generalised reciprocity, which is created through “thin trust”.
Multiplexity in networks, i.e. actors knowing each other in more than one context, can facilitate
what Coleman calls “appropriable social organisation” or the benefits of relationships from one
context being appropriated for use in another (Coleman 1988, S109).

Social capital as a public good

However, because Coleman essentially argues from an economic perspective, where rational
actors choose to invest in certain courses of action above others, he sees social capital as a
by-product of other, more intentional, activities. By definition, social capital is competing for
actors’ attention with other, presumably more lucrative, forms of capital whose benefits accrue
directly and exclusively to the individual who invests in them. In Coleman’s example, stay-at-
home mothers who are active in a Parent Teacher Association might opt out of their
engagement to take up paid employment instead. Although their engagement has benefited
the school overall, including parents, teachers and children who are not directly involved, the
direct and exclusive benefit the activists themselves receive may not be able to compete with
the financial benefits of working. In other words, Coleman assumes that rational actors act for
egoistic, not altruistic reasons and this becomes quite explicit when he talks about trust: “An
actor choosing to keep trust or not (or choosing whether to devote resources to an attempt to
keep trust) is doing so on the basis of costs and benefits he himself will experience. That his
trustworthiness will facilitate others’ actions or that his lack of trustworthiness will inhibit others’
actions does not enter into his decision.” (Coleman 1988, S117). It is unclear whether this
argument simply does not take altruism into account or if altruistic motivations would be seen
as just another element of the individual actor’s cost-benefit analysis when weighing different
courses of action.

What seems clear from Coleman, however, is that individuals often prioritise other forms of
capital, leading to an underinvestment in social capital. Where social capital occurs it is
accidental, rather than a result of individuals consciously setting out to create it (e.g. acquiring
information for one’s own benefit also makes one a good source of information for others, but

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the main motivation for acquiring the information in the first place is about reaping the
individual benefit).

Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist (1930-2002) who is still very influential in the
discipline of sociology. Bourdieu’s version of social capital does not criticise the assumption
that, ultimately, all forms of social behaviour have economic implications. But he criticises the
concept of capital as it is used in economics, which reduces social exchange relations
between actors to those that involve the exchange of goods for money. According to Bourdieu,
this makes areas that are outside of this narrowly monetary discourse appear as “sacrosanct”
and untouched by economic capital. By contrast, his analysis of economic, cultural and social
capital shows that cultural and social capital are both dependent on economic capital and can,
under certain circumstances be transformed into monetary value. Consequently, the areas that
are supposedly untouched by monetary concerns are in fact heavily influenced by them.
Therefore, social capital as conceived of by Bourdieu is not an antidote against the primacy of
economic principles in human interaction but an extension of these principles to non-monetary
forms of interaction and exchange.

Bourdieu defines social capital as “resources that are based on membership in a group”
(Bourdieu, 1983, p.191). The amount of social capital a person has depends not only on the
size of this person’s network, but also on the extent to which network members have access to
forms of capital. That is, it is not sufficient to have many friends, unless these do offer a
conduit for accessing forms of capital. Social networks do not exist naturally, but require
ongoing work through material and symbolic exchange relations. Individual and collective
investment decisions prioritise certain relations over others, in view of future benefit. And
because this requires time and money, the ability to do this is in turn dependent on economic
capital. Institutionalisation is also involved, in the sense that naturally-occurring relations are
transformed into necessary relations with the concomitant obligations (Bourdieu, 1983). The
formation of social capital is thus an intentional process in itself, which is driven by aspirations
to personal gain – a notion that stands in stark contrast to Coleman’s notion of social capital’s
public good nature and his assertion that happens as a side effect of other, more individually-
driven decisions.

However, importantly, as Portes (1998) emphasises, while Bourdieu’s social capital itself is
dependent on economic capital, the processes involved in the formation of social capital are
radically different from the processes involved in economic exchange, because they are
characterised by “less transparency and more uncertainty … by unspecified obligations,
uncertain time horizons, and the possible violation of reciprocity expectations” (Portes, 1998,
p.4). It might be this lack of transparency that is ultimately to blame for the popular notion that
social relationships are a form of capital that is even accessible to those who are poor in
monetary terms.

Habitus
Bourdieu’s concept of habitus casts additional light on the reasons why structural
characteristics of society, such as class, keep their importance, even in the world of social
capital with its apparent independence from actors’ economic standing in society.
Habitus is “the product of internalization of the division into social classes” (Gieseking, 2014,
p.139). Habitus is created over time by the interplay of actors’ free will and the structural
constraints they encounter. Shaped by past events and perceptions it influences current
practices and structures, as well as actors’ perceptions of these. Habitus is “a socially
constituted system of cognitive and motivating structures” (Bourdieu, 1977, p.76) that
produces certain behavioural patterns and the norms or tendencies underpinning this
behaviour. These behavioural patterns and norms have thus been shaped by actors’ past

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experiences of the material conditions of existence over many years and, in turn, shape
present and future actions. They determine what seems appropriate and normal in any given
setting and as such amount to a system of behavioural patterns that transcend individual
behaviour and “reproduce” the existing social order, rather than questioning it.
A key characteristic of habitus is the fact that individuals are largely unconscious of it. To those
who are engaged in them, these behavioural patterns seem completely natural and self-
evident. As such, they equip individuals with the ability to cope with ever changing situations,
based on knowledge of previous situations. Bourdieu argues that as much as our actions
appear to be motivated by considerations about the future, they are actually, via habitus,
“determined by the past conditions which have produced the principle of their production”
(Bourdieu, 1977, p.72). As a result, human behaviour is ultimately engaged in reproducing the
existing social order. It is neither properly understood as mechanistic, nor as guided by
individuals’ free will. Bourdieu also asserts that relationships between individuals are never
strictly speaking “individual-to-individual relationships and that the truth of the interaction is
never entirely contained in the interaction” itself (Bourdieu, 1977, p.81). Rather, the
relationship consists of the actual situation in which individuals interact, plus individuals’
“present and past positions in the social structure that … [they] carry with them , at all times
and in all places, in the form of dispositions which are so many marks of social position and
hence of the social distance … between social persons conjuncturally brought together”
((Bourdieu, 1977, p.82).

Because habitus determines everything individuals and collectives do, it is also significant for
the development of social capital. Even relationship types that seem to transcend these
structural divisions between people are ultimately based on them. Bourdieu gives the example
of sympathy, friendship or love, which he says “are dominated … through the harmony of
habitus … more precisely, the harmony of ethos and tastes … by the objective structure of the
relations between social conditions. The illusion of mutual election or predestination arises
from ignorance of the social conditions for the harmony of aesthetic tastes or ethical leanings,
which is thereby perceived as evidence of the ineffable affinities which spring from it”
(Bourdieu, 1977, p.82). In other words, what makes individuals connect in friendship are thus
the very patterns of behaviour and norms that have been produced by habitus and therefore
are an expression of individuals’ position in society. Therefore, rather than transcending class
differences, friendship patterns reproduce them.

Based on this the area of social capital is not an area where the social constraints prevalent in
society at large are not relevant, but where these constraints express themselves in a different
form. Using the example of life-styles Bourdieu describes how economic capital and power are
transformed into symbolic capital: “Life-styles are thus the systematic products of habitus …
sign systems that are socially qualified (as ‘distinguished’, ‘vulgar’ etc.). The dialectic of
conditions and habitus is the basis of an alchemy which transforms the distribution of capital,
the balance-sheet of a power relation, into a system of perceived differences, distinctive
properties, that is, a distribution of symbolic capital” (Gieseking, 2014, p.140). Stocks of
symbolic capital are likely to influence one’s relations to other people, hence having an impact
on social capital.

Bridging and bonding and the dark side of social

capital
Although according to Portes, there is a broad consensus “that social capital stands for the
ability of actors to secure benefits by virtue of membership in social networks or other social
structures” (Portes, 1998, p.6), there is much debate about such issues as how to evidence
social capital, the potential benefits of social capital and which types of social capital are most

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beneficial in what circumstances. One of the most prevalent debates relates to the question of
the value of social capital itself. Is it, as Putnam would claim that any type of social relations
are better than no social relations, or is it as Bourdieu holds, that social relations are only
beneficial if they connect us to people who have access to resources?
It is widely acknowledged, for example, that disadvantaged communities often have higher
levels of bonding social capital, but lower levels of bridging social capital. That is, they are rich
in regular face-to-face relations, which inspire a level of trust that facilitates mutual support and
reciprocity. However, questions have been raised about the long-term benefit of such relations.
While they may be useful for “getting by”, they may be less so for “getting ahead” (de Souza
Briggs, 1998, p.178). There are concerns about whether the insularity of such relations is
simply ineffective in helping individuals to improve their situation, or if it actually hampers or
discourages such attempts altogether. Therefore, being part of networks that are mainly
characterised by high levels of trust and the existence of certain norms can actually have
adverse effects on individuals’ social mobility, health and wellbeing. This is often called the
“dark side” of social capital and, at the extreme end of the spectrum the mafia and religious
cults are cited as examples of bonding social capital.

Thus, whether social capital is beneficial and in what respects, clearly depends both on the
type of social capital and on the context within which it is formed.

For example, it has been highlighted that bridging social capital can be particularly effective
when it comes to finding employment, because bridging ties are good for the acquisition of
new information. A famous advocate of this line of reasoning is Mark Granovetter who coined
the expression “the strength of weak ties”, which referred to the usefulness of bridging social
capital in individual attempts to find jobs. Nevertheless, this is not as straightforward as it
appears and others have argued that ties can be weak and strong in different ways, which
potentially all lead to different outcomes. For example Harris shows that strong ties can be
significant for obtaining certain jobs as much as weak ties, but in different ways (Harris, 1987).

Therefore, the apparent simplicity of social capital as a concept is deceptive and the policy
emphasis on social connectedness as a positive phenomenon masks the fact that different
types of social capital do different things for different people and in different contexts. There is
also reason to believe that distinguishing bonding, bridging and linking capital may not be
sufficient to grasp the way social capital works in individuals’ lived reality.

Practical implications
The review of the three main versions of social capital raise important tensions that show the
contested nature of the concept. These concern the following:
 Is social capital a property of individuals or of communities, an individual or a public
good?
 Is individuals’ acquisition of social capital motivated by self-interest, or is it something
that happens as a by-product or despite of actors’ self-interested choices?
 To what extent is social capital a product of the existing social structure and the
distribution of economic capital within it – does it allow individuals to transcend the
social structure or merely to reproduce it?
 Is social capital a tangible thing (i.e. Putnam’s civic organisations) or a process?
 What counts as evidence of social capital?

According to Lichterman (2006), Putnam’s concept of social capital is fundamentally a

quantitative translation of Tocqueville’s ideas about the sorts of social relations that lay the

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foundation of a functioning democracy. Putnam’s concept is heavily infused with the notion of
civic engagement as an activity that furthers general reciprocity, which is in turn seen as
necessary for citizens to be able to perceive themselves as part of a larger society and
become more active participants in democratic processes of decisionmaking. Social capital for
Putnam is located in geographic communities, is largely based on face-to-face relations and
on citizens doing things together on a regular basis. It is because of this political dimension
that Putnam appears to value relationships that are embedded in formal participation (i.e.
membership in civic organisations) more highly than those that are characterised by informal
links, such as friendship. And although he acknowledges the fact that both bonding and
bridging capital are important for different reasons, the political dimension of his argument
leads to a stronger endorsement of bridging capital, because of its ability to bring about
generalised reciprocity.

Putnam’s social capital concept therefore is ultimately about citizenship and the aim of Bowling
Alone is to make an argument that will appeal to policymakers. Because Putnam sets out to
prove that there is a decline of social capital in order to suggest ways of reversing this decline,
it makes sense that his argument is made using a quantitative approach. This means that he
uses a set of indicators to prove or disprove the presence of social capital and as a result
social capital seems more like an object, rather than a process, a fact that critics like Crossley
(2008) have pointed out. Although Putnam realises that social capital is something that is
generated by social networks and therefore processes, his quantitative approach of measuring
social capital via indicators gives the impression that social capital is being reduced to a thing.
As is so common in purely quantitative approaches, the numbers only point out what is there
but not how it came about and why.

In Coleman, on the other hand, it is very clear that social capital is the furthest thing from a
tangible object, but resides in the relationships themselves. Where Putnam locates social
capital in social networks that are face-to-face, local and centred on civic activity in the
broadest sense, Coleman’s concept of social capital can surface anywhere, as the examples
in his 1988 paper show (Coleman, 1988). This is because social capital in Coleman’s view is
versatile and serves functions, both narrowly individual and broader societal ones. Although
Coleman, other than Putnam, emphasises that social capital is intangible and quite elusive, he
does propose a way of making it visible or at least making visible the processes that generate
it. He does this by focussing on the impact of social network structure on individual actors’
decisions.

Although in Coleman there is a rational actor making decisions, therefore recognising

individual agency, this does not mean that social capital only serves narrow individualistic
goals. To the contrary, social capital is primarily a public good, with the benefit that actually
accrues to the individual actor being limited. As a result, Coleman sees it as unlikely that
rational actors will consciously engage in certain behaviours to build social capital, unless their
own egoistic goals are facilitated by this.

On the surface, the idea of the rational actor making investment decisions based on egoism
seems relatively similar to Bourdieu’s notion of social capital as being something that requires
an ongoing investment by the individual in view of the possibility of reaping future dividends.
Both authors see the investment in social capital as fundamentally economic decisions made
by rational actors. However, the difference between the two is that for Coleman the benefit is
mainly a public good, whereas for Bourdieu the benefit seems to be much more exclusive to
the actors directly involved. For Bourdieu’s rational actors, social capital, or the fact that they
have invested time and money into membership of a social group, becomes part of their
individual stock of capital. In that sense, the benefits of social capital accrue to the individual
itself, rather than being a public good. Hence, for Bourdieu’s rational actor it makes perfect
sense to consciously invest in relationships, because these promise individual benefit at some
point. For Coleman’s rational actor, investment in social capital itself is trumped by other

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considerations, because social capital itself produces only limited benefit to the individual who
engages in its production.

Another difference between Bourdieu and Coleman concerns the issue of power and class.
For Bourdieu the social capital that accrues to the individual actor depends on the number of
actors in the network and the degree of their wealth in forms of capital. For Coleman, the
social capital inherent in social networks is about the structural characteristics of the network,
e.g. in which ways different network members are connected to each other. Thus, Coleman’s
social capital is independent of class, whereas Bourdieu’s is not.

According to Portes Bourdieu’s conception of social capital is “the most theoretically refined”
(1998), whereas Coleman’s and Putnam’s approaches have been marred by the conflation of
social capital with the resources acquired through it. Portes concludes that “a systematic
treatment of the concept must distinguish among: (a) the possessors of social capital (those
making claims); (b) the sources of social capital (those agreeing on those demands); (c) the
resources themselves” (Portes, 1998, p.6).

The following table summarises the strengths and weaknesses of the three concepts.

Table 1: Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths Weaknesses
Putnam Direct application to the voluntary Reliance on statistics; no
sector and focus on local attention to how the formation
communities with a definition of of social capital actually
social capital that privileges civic happens and to the nuanced
engagement. nature of civic engagement (i.e.
definition of membership and
organisations).

Insufficient considerations of
structural factors, e.g. class,
ethnicity, gender

Social capital as a “thing”

Coleman Combination of structure and Social capital as a by-product

agency of rational action based on
egoism. Where is altruism in
Illuminates how rational individual this? Is an essentially economic
choices are determined by the interpretation suitable for
structural features of their social studying the voluntary sector?
networks (=mechanisms?)

Concept of appropriable social

organisation may be useful for
studying the voluntary sector

Generic definition of social capital

is more flexible

Social capital as a process

Attempt to capture the intangible

nature of social capital.

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 Bourdieu Highlights connections between Too focused on individual
social capital and other forms of benefit from social capital,
capital/the class structure of rather than seeing it as
society. something that is inherent in
the relationship itself.
Focusses on the investment over
time that individuals make in social
networks in order to reap the
benefit later (transforming natural
into necessary relations).

Use of social capital in research

There is a burgeoning literature on social capital and the overview below is not intended to be
comprehensive, but aims to give some examples how this concept might be applied in
voluntary sector research. As the table below shows, those articles that have been reviewed
largely adopt Putnam’s concept, but the second-most popular approach is Coleman’s. Finally,
there are two papers that do not mention social capital explicitly, but whose content can be
understood in social capital terms.

Table 2: Social capital approach used in reviewed literature

Authors Putnam Coleman Bourdieu
Agger and Jensen X
Cattell X X
Conolly X
Crossley X
Firth X
Gardner
Hafsi
Hampton X X
Hollstein X
Lichterman X
McGovern X
Milligan and Fyfe X
Morrow X

The role of intermediaries

Agger and Jensen (2015) take social capital as defined by Putnam as a starting point but note
that Putnam has been criticised for the absence of a statutory dimension, which has caused
Szreter (2002) to introduce the notion of linking capital. Although there have been numerous
studies of urban regeneration that have looked at bonding and bridging capital and thus
“horizontal relations”, only a few have looked at “vertical relations” between those with differing
levels of power. In their paper, they use data collected about Danish regeneration initiatives to
argue that bonding and bridging capital are a precondition for linking capital. In urban deprived
neighbourhoods where there may be much bonding social capital and varying levels of
bridging capital, urban regeneration organisations have the potential to provide linking capital.
However, Agger and Jensen emphasise that in order to provide linking capital, the area-based
initiatives (ABI) that they studied had to begin by building bonding and bridging social capital
first, which they did through creating networks of likeminded people and linking up existing

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local networks, often through ‘third spaces’ because “it is easier to ‘reach out’ if citizens are
based in a supportive network where they feel safe”. Therefore, the ABIs served as
intermediary institutions between neighbourhood-based actors and between these actors and
local government (Agger and Jensen, 2015, p.2055).

This is similar to the function played by Centraide, the Canadian philanthropic non-profit whose
relationship to the external environment is analysed by Hafsi and Thomas (2005). Although the
authors never explicitly mention social capital, Putnam’s notion of bonding and bridging capital,
as well of Agger and Jensen’s idea of acting as an intermediary is implied.
Hafsi and Thomas are concerned with the difficult balancing act an organisation that is
dependent on its external environment has to perform, but they take issue with the accepted
theory that organisations’ viability is furthered by their ability to stay independent from their
external environment. This idea of an organisation staying independent of the external
environment could perhaps be seen as the dominance of an approach based on bonding
social capital.

The authors compare two periods of change in the history of Centraide, firstly, one that was
driven by the desire for autonomy and, secondly, one that was socially driven. During the first
period, the organisation was trying to cement its monopoly position and positioned itself as an
expert for addressing community problems. Because strategic decisions were made by the
president and a few devoted staff, stakeholders increasingly became disgruntled, because
their views were not sufficiently taken into account, and the period ended with the dismissal of
the organisation’s president by the board. The new president adopted a “modest and non-
threatening” stance and inaugurated a period of change that was guided by engagement with
stakeholders and taking their views on board. In social capital terms, Centraide had turned
from an inward-looking organisation whose inner workings were controlled by a small cadre of
staff members to one that adopted a partnership approach and thus invested more in bridging
social capital.

As a result, the internal makeup of the organisation changed – with external funders being
important stakeholders fundraising professionals in the organisation acquired a more visible
profile compared to before – but the organisation’s role in its external environment also
changed. It became a broker and “the only table where everybody is willing to sit” (Hafsi and
Thomas, 2005, p.341). Centraide was thus building bridging and linking social capital in the
urban region where it operated and provided a ‘third space’ for others to come together.

Third spaces
The notion of ‘third spaces’ is explored by Gardner (2011). Like Hafsi and Thomas, Gardner
does not mention social capital, but the idea that such spaces encourage “natural
relationships,” rather than forced relationships (familial, agency workers, volunteers, paid staff)
seems highly promising for studying community-based organisations’ role in building social
capital. Gardner talks about the social networks of individuals being complemented by a
“natural neighbourhood network”, which is shaped by encounters that take place in third
spaces. Gardner also notes that natural relationships are more naturally shared among age
groups, which seems to imply that they can be considered bridging capital. ‘Natural
relationships’ brings to mind Bourdieu’s idea that institutionalisation of social capital involves
transforming naturally occurring relationships into “necessary relationships” (Bourdieu, 1983,
p.192).

One in-depth study of third spaces is that of community gardens by Firth et al. (2011). They
see the ability to act as a third space as one of four ways in which community gardens build
social capital. The authors find Putnam’s concept of social capital useful in providing a
framework for studying how community gardens function and what types of communities are
formed in and around the garden. They echo Putnam’s assertion that bonding and bridging

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capital co-exist, but their comparison of place-based with interest-based community garden
schemes suggests that place-based notions of community garden create social capital that is
more likely to benefit the community around it, rather than just the people directly involved
(Firth et al., 2011).
Importantly, Firth et al. also conclude that “community gardens are a consequence and a
source of social capital” (p.564), perhaps emphasising the circularity of the social capital
argument that has been criticised by many (e.g. Portes 1998).

Methodologies
Cattell (Phillipson et al., 2004) also refers to this circularity in her study of two urban
neighbourhoods in London. She concludes that “social capital theory is limited as an
explanatory tool for uncovering the connections between wider structures and networks or
norms, or for establishing the direction of relationships between norms and networks”
(Phillipson et al., 2004, p.159). However, Cattell supplements social capital theory with a
methodology that is based on analysing not only people’s networks, but also their values and
norms, and calls this “networks of experience approach”(Phillipson et al., 2004, p.157). Rather
than only uncovering the various types of social capital (bonding, bridging or linking) and
identifying their structural equivalents in individuals’ social networks, Cattell’s analysis
incorporates values, identities and attitudes. This results in a much more nuanced view of
social capital than either Putnam or Coleman are able to offer. The findings suggest that
network size, the type of ties in the network (bonding vs. bridging, informal vs. formal), the
resources available to network members, the physical space provided by the neighbourhood,
as well as the existence of certain norms and a history all influence how beneficial social
networks are for health.

A number of authors point out that Putnam’s concept lacks nuance. Morrow (Phillipson et al.,
2004) who studied young people’s networks finds that focussing on social capital enables
researchers to understand processes and practices rather than focussing just on the
‘outcomes’. In her specific case, she consciously juxtaposes her study of young people to
traditional studies that exclusively focus on the psychological importance of friendship for
individual development, rather than accounting for it as a social practice. Despite this
advantage of social capital as a concept, however, Morrow points out that for young people
Putnam’s operationalisation of social capital as membership in civic organisations is irrelevant
(Phillipson et al., 2004).

Lichterman (2006) presents an interesting case for re-connecting social capital to its
essentially qualitative Tocquevillian roots by introducing “group style” as a concept that
highlights important differences among the types of organisations membership in which might
have constituted social capital in Putnam’s simplistic terms. Lichterman’s “group style” is
proposed to “unhitch Tocqueville from Putnam’s social capital concept and choose an
alternative concept that can do the work that social capital tries to do but cannot” (p.531).
His main argument seems to be that in Putnam’s operationalisation of the concepts elaborated
by Tocqueville the meaning of these concepts is lost in translation. Therefore, the problem is
not the concept itself but the methodology with which its presence is ascertained. Lichterman
implies that the way policymakers use the indicators by Putnam is counter-productive because
engagement in voluntary groups per se does not necessarily constitute a public good. Instead,
group style and hence the “customs of group life” (Lichterman 2006, 563) influence whether
engagement creates social capital that is true to the Tocquevillian vision. So, similar to Cattell
(Phillipson et. al., 2004), Lichterman emphasises the role of norms and culture for the
formation of social capital.

A similar argument is made by Milligan and Fyfe (2005), who conclude that the extent to which
organisations provide an arena for active citizenship in the form of volunteering is associated
with different organisational frameworks (Milligan and Fyfe 2005, p.423). The group style

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concept might be a promising one to use when looking at community-based organisations and
their role in generating social capital. An added bonus is that the group style concept “saves us
from reifying civic and ‘state sectors’ and assuming that whatever happens inside one sector
must be inherently different, or more or less empowering, from what happens inside the other”
(Lichterman 2006, p.562).

Crossley (2008) comments on the fact that most studies of social capital have focussed on
political, charitable or business activities and introduces his study of social capital at a private
health club as “corrective to the bias of much contemporary work” (Crossley 2008, p.476), but
also as a way of shedding light on areas of social life that are not necessarily experiencing the
decline outlined in Bowling Alone. He is also one of the few authors included here who draws
on Coleman’s focus on social capital as a function, rather than a thing and introduces this,
along with social network analysis, as a way of illuminating which mechanisms explain the
association of social capital and wellbeing (Crossley 2008). He also uses social network
analysis (SNA) to illustrate both the often-noted “dark side of social capital” and the fact that
co-location does not automatically mean network membership. Crossley also asserts that
attention to the structural characteristics of networks is not sufficient to ascertain whether
these result in social capital without taking into account the context in which these networks
form (Crossley 2008).

McGovern is the only author in the body of literature reviewed here who draws on Bourdieu to
analyse the internal dynamics of a voluntary organisation. She uses social capital, along with
other forms of capital, as a “sensitising concept” to explain the power dynamics within the
organisation. Here, social capital is an individual resource that group members have and that
enables them to leverage power over other groups, whose accumulated stock of capital is not
as high or not as readily transformable into money and therefore power.

Conclusion
Social capital is a widely used concept in policy and in research. Although there is a broad
consensus that it refers to benefits that accrue to individuals through membership in social
networks, there is a diversity of approaches and concepts that flow from this and there is no
consensus about which benefits are associated with different types of social capital, whether
social capital is an individual or public good, whether it transcends or reproduces the existing
social order and how it can be evidenced. There is, however, reason to believe that social
capital should not automatically be seen as a positive phenomenon, but that its benefits largely
depend on the context in which it is formed and used.

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