Paul Blokker
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Overview Class
Social Capital
:
- 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
a. Social capital as necessary condition for successful local development, social integration, and political participation; b. Attention for significance of social ties as well as cultural underpinnings for local development; c. 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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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,

1. Social Capital
A Conceptualization of Social Capital
- Social capital can be seen as indicating an
, rather than a
- 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 people’s tendency to associate with others or in groups;
3. Social embeddedness. Mechanisms of social integration and reproduction.
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1. Social Capital
1. Sociality
(see in particular Coleman)
The idea is that action, but is neither completely completely rationality predetermined is at the basis of social free-standing under-socialized views of rational action), nor by social norms and structures (as in over-socialized accounts of behaviour).
(as in
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 selfinterested 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.
- Bourdieu’s 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
1. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
A. James Coleman
Coleman’s 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
A. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
A. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
A. 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
1. 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’ 18

1. Social Capital
1. 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
1. 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
1. 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
1. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
B. Robert Putnam
Putnam’s interpretation builds on Coleman’s – 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 Tocqueville’s civic associationism; civic culture);
Civic virtue then explains efficiency and cohesion
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1. Social Capital
1. 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
1. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
C. Pierre Bourdieu
Bourdieu’s focus is on agents or actors and their particular positions within society;
Life is not a roulette: changing one’s social status quasi-instantaneously is not possible;
One of the premises of Bourdieu’s 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
1. 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
1. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
C. Pierre Bourdieu
- ‘[T]he 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
1. 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
1. 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
1. 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
1. 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
1. Social Capital as Collective Resource
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1. Social Capital
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1. Social Capital
1. Social Capital as interdisciplinary programme
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1. Social Capital
1. Social Capital as interdiscplinary programme
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