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Lectures and notes Social Capital
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Lectures and notes from Social Capital, given at Radboud University.
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Social CapitalFrom ambiguous concept to two clearly demarcated lines of research
College 1: Founders and foundations
Exam: 8 multi-part questions on each of the different topics in 3 hours.
Final grade 80% plus paper 20%.
What is social capital?
Main components
- Contact with family, neighbours and friends
- Helping a classmate move house?
- Giving someone directions? Helping someone
- Organizations?
- Trust?
What is social capital?: Bourdieu 1986
Economic capital: accumulated property rights, immediately and directly convertible into
money.
Cultural capital: educational qualifications that can be converted into money.
Social capital: social obligations or ties
Stock of social capital per individual: sum of mobilizable network connections, each with its
own economic and cultural capital. You are connected with alters, but also the potential
amount. With your network, you can tap in at a network from a network. These are
protentional. You are not connected with them personally.
Social capital is the outcome of instrumental, (sub)conscious, individual of collective
investments in the build-up and maintenance of social relationships with an eye on expected
future returns. You spend time and money in the expectation that it will lead to returns in
the future.
Social (and cultural) capital is interchangeable; but is based on and derived from economic
capital. If you want to exchange types of capital, it takes time and money.
What is social capital?: Coleman 1988
Rational Action paradigm in the study of social systems:
- Sociology sees individuals as socialized actors, without goals, without an “engine for action”.
- Economics sees individuals as having a goal: utility maximalization, but overlooks that human
actions are shaped and constrained by the social context. Without being aware that there is
more than these individuals.
“Social capital is defined by its function. It is …a variety of different entities, with two
elements in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structures, and they facilitate
certain actions of actors … within the structure. …Social capital inheres in the structure of
relations between actors and among actors… Social capital comes about through changes in
the relations among persons that facilitate action” (p. S98/S100).
Rather vague definition: social relations that facilitate behaviour. Both the resources
themselves and the way they are obtained fall under it, but are not as sharply differentiated
as by Bourdieu.
Definition quickly leads to tautology in which social capital is equated with the resources
obtained.
Three forms of social capital by Coleman
, 1. Obligations, reciprocal expectations and trustworthiness of networks;
2. Information channels via social relations in networks;
3. Social norms for the sake of collective (rather than individual) interests. (crime)
In 1 and 3, social closure plays a large role. In closed networks more social capital can be
produced than in open networks.
Left is an open structure and right is a closed structure. Right is better because trust is very
important. Also the effect of norms is only in closed circles. If everyone knows eachother, the chance
of cheating on one another is much smaller.
• Social capital consists of social relations/networks that can be characterized as a “public
good/social resource”.
• (unlike financial, physical and human capital, which are individual resources). - Returns, including
for those who don’t invest (externalities); - Losses, including for those who do invest.
• No role for economic or cultural capital?
• There is interest in relationships between the social capital of parents and the human capital
(education) of their children.
Theoretical models of Bourdieu and Coleman
What is social capital? Putnam (2002)
• “whereas physical and human capital refers to properties of individuals …Social capital refers
to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and
trustworthiness that arise from them.” (Putnam, 2000; p. 19 etc.).
• Note: connections among individuals – social networks are, according to Putnam (implicitly),
lasting connections within “associations”, in other words, “civic organizations”: more or less
formally-organized associations of volunteers.
, • So, according to Putnam 2000:
- Individuals have/maintain Social Relationships (via (formal) networks),
- Based on Norms of Reciprocity,
- from which mutual Trustworthiness arises.
- But in earlier studies (Putnam, 1993, 1995):
- Social capital is a …stock possessed by communities and even nations and the consequent
structural effects on their development…
- But in later studies (Putnam, 2007):
- Mean and lean definition: social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and
trustworthiness.
Social Capital is thus:
- Ambiguous
- Diverse
- Described at various levels
- Cause
- Effect
Portes (2002) wrote about two meanings of Social Capital
As a property of individuals (as in Bourdieu, Coleman & Putnam, 2000): “Social capital
became defined as (1) a source of social control, (2) a source of family-mediated benefits,
and (3) a source of resources mediated by nonfamily networks.” (ibid.: 2).
As a property of cellectivities (as in Putnam, 1993, 1995).
What is social capital? : Portes (2000)
Portes is very critical of social capital as a property of communities because of:
- Contradictions between social capital at the individual level and social capital at the
collective level;
- The cause and effect of social capital as an individual and collective property are not
distinguished;
- Little research on alternative explanations (catch-all explanation).
, What is questions are…
According tot philosopher of science Popper (1972):
- These are unproductive questions
Use therefore:
- Working definitions that are clear and operationalizable.
- Accept, if necessary, the terminology used by the author whose working definition you
dispute.
- Focus on propositions concerning the topic under study: after all, we are interested in
refutation or conformation of theories.
Deductive-nomological model
Example in line with Coleman
Therefore: social capital as an observable and thus operationalizable social phenomenon
Van Deth (2003)
- Structural aspects of social capital: social contacts within civic organizations (Putnam) but
also with family, friends, neighbours, colleagues (Bourdieu/Coleman).
- Cultural aspects of social capital: trust in (generalized) others and norm of reciprocity
(Coleman/Putman)
Pichler & Wallace (2007)/ Gesthuizen et al. (2009):
- Formal social capital: participation in formally constituted organizations and activities
(Putnam).
- Trust?
- Informal social capital: (investments in) social relationships with family, friends, neighbours,
colleagues with expected returns (Bourdieu, Coleman)
Then:
- Social capital observable in two or three dimensions and
- Operationalizable at individual level
- Aggregable to the higher level of societies (street, neighbourhood, town, country).
Furthermore, (theoretically and empirically) distinguishable:
- Causes at the individual and/or contextual level.
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