Macedo Social Capital

The International

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INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES

Volume 4, Number 1

Two Decades of Social Capital: Where is this Concept Going? Ignacio Macedo Castillejos

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THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com First published in 2009 in Melbourne, Australia by Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd www.CommonGroundPublishing.com. © 2009 (individual papers), the author(s) © 2009 (selection and editorial matter) Common Ground Authors are responsible for the accuracy of citations, quotations, diagrams, tables and maps. All rights reserved. Apart from fair use for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act (Australia), no part of this work may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. For permissions and other inquiries, please contact . ISSN: 1833-1882 Publisher Site: http://www.SocialSciences-Journal.com THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES is peer-reviewed, supported by rigorous processes of criterion-referenced article ranking and qualitative commentary, ensuring that only intellectual work of the greatest substance and highest significance is published. Typeset in Common Ground Markup Language using CGCreator multichannel typesetting system http://www.commongroundpublishing.com/software/

Two Decades of Social Capital: Where is this Concept Going? Ignacio Macedo Castillejos, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Abstract: After 20 years that social capital was conceptualised, the current development of this concept seems to be ambiguous. Hence, this paper addresses the following research questions: Does social capital has achieved a common understanding among scholars and practitioners? How is this concept being used among scholars to address development issues? Is it possible to assert that the concept of social capital is consolidated as analytical framework? Thus, the aim of this work is to know the current state social capital as analytical framework to address development issues. Specifically, it is attempted to know the way that social scientists understand and apply the concept of social capital. The author finds out how scholars and policy analysts identify social capital, measure social capital, promote the creation of social capital, and link the concept to different theoretical frameworks. In order to do this, it was carefully examined the most referenced research articles on social capital. The main conclusion is that effective interdisciplinary research based on social capital concept requires a well defined theoretical framework. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate explicitly Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam’s perspectives. It is not desirable to continue in the anarchical way that has followed the development of this concept over the last 20 years. Just as physical capital is clearly associated to specific characteristics of tools and machines; or human capital is associated to academic credentials and abilities; social capital must be specified in a similar way. It is crucial to create basic “standards” or “codes” of understanding between scholars of different areas or with different backgrounds. Thus, it is necessary to stop using social capital in the multiples ways it has being used. Keywords: Social Capital, Coleman, Bourdieu, Putnam, Social Research, Institutional Economics, Social Networks, Development Studies

Introduction N THE LATE 1980’s arose the concept of social capital on account of theoretical developments of Pierre Bourdieu (1986) and James Coleman (1988). At the beginning of 1990’s this concept became popular due to the work of Robert Putnam (1993). Today social capital concept has many followers around the world –including international organizations such as United Nations and The World Bank. However, at the same time it has many detractors who have strongly argued about the weaknesses and boundaries of social capital to address development issues. Over twenty years, social scientist have adapted the concept of social capital –according to their views and necessities—to several theoretical frameworks in anthropology, sociology, political science and economics. This has caused the existence of several definitions of social capital as well as several interpretations. After 20 years that social capital was conceptualised, the current development of this concept seems to be ambiguous. Hence, this paper addresses the following research questions: Does social capital has achieved a common understanding among scholars and practitioners? How is this concept being used among scholars to address development issues? Is it possible

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to assert that the concept of social capital is consolidated as analytical framework? Thus, the aim of this work is to know the current state social capital as analytical framework to address development issues. Specifically, it is attempted to know the way that social scientists understand and apply the concept of social capital. In this paper is shown how scholars and policy analysts identify social capital, measure social capital, promote the creation of social capital, and link the concept to different theoretical frameworks. In order to do this, it was carefully examined the most referenced research articles on social capital. The analysis of these articles provided a general idea about the kind of sources that researches are basing their research on social capital. It is expected that the findings of this research may contribute to set a ground to improve the consistency and quality of interdisciplinary research in development studies.

The Foundations of Social Capital Physical capital, financial capital, human capital and social capital are just some of the most popular terms used to express different forms of capital. Physical capital usually refers to buildings, machinery and tools used in a productive process. In the same way, financial capital is defined as the money used to run a productive activity. Human capital can be a little more difficult to define since this kind of capital is intangible. In the 1960s, Jacob Mincer (1958) and Gary Becker (1964) demonstrated that knowledge, skills and health of the workforce also play an important role for the economic performance of firms and societies. These attributes of individuals was named human capital. In the following years, human capital concept became very popular and was generally accepted to explain differences in performance of economies with similar conditions of physical capital, financial capital, and natural resources. In the case of social capital, the first attempts to coin the term were made to refer to some social aspects such as trust, reciprocity and solidarity among individuals which might also affect economic performance organizations and society. These first attempts can be seen in Hanifan (1916), Fischer (1959), Nishibe and Kiyokawa (1971), Ponton (1975), Loury (1977), Tsokhas (1981) and Lorcher (1982). However, it was until Bourdieu (1986) and Coleman (1988) where one can see the more formal attempts to build an analytical framework based on social capital idea. Pierre Bourdieu defined social capital as “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 in a groupwhich provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital…” (Bourdieu, 1986:249). In 1988, James Coleman defined social capital indirectly, since it is intangible he define it by its function, “It is not a single entity but a variety of different entities, with two elements in common: they all consist of some aspects of social structures, and they facilitate certain actions of actors –whether persons or corporate- within the structure” (Coleman, 1988:S98); and adds “…just as the concept chair identifies certain physical objects by their function, despite differences in form, appearance and construction. The function identified by the concept of social capital is the value of these aspects of social structure to actors as a resource that they can use to achieve their interests.” (Coleman, 1988:S101) Maybe the only similarity in these two definitions is that both authors consider social capital as a resource. But, what this resource is made of? What is the value of this resource?

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Who have access to this resource? How is this resource created? Where is this resource located? How can this resource be managed? Paradoxically, all these questions can be answered in different ways from the perspective of each author. Bourdieu sees forces inscribed in the society, in the form of social relations that can be observed in the form of associations, family names, and nobility, which affect the result of social interactions. These relations are not optional for the individuals; most of them are given historically and by the social context. These accumulated relations –or “connections”—are what Bourdieu calls social capital. On the other hand, Coleman sees social capital through social norms, information channels, social expectations and obligations of individuals within a specific social structure. Thus, whereas for Bourdieu the resource is embedded to the social structure –an exogenous variable, for Coleman it is a kind of resource that persons are able to control –it is determined and managed in the system by actors. “If we begin a theory of rational action, in which each actor has control over certain resources and interests in certain resources and events, the social capital constitutes a particular kind of resource available” (Coleman, 1988:S98). Coleman’s ontological position is close to constructivism1, where decisions of social actors shape the social world. In other words, in Coleman´s theoretical framework, the individual –actor—has the power of choice; in contrast, for Bourdieu’s the individual has not choice, “social world is accumulated history, and if it is not to be reduced to a discontinuous series of instantaneous equilibria between agents who are treated as interchangeable particles, one must reintroduce into the notion of capital and with it, accumulation and all its effects.” (Bourdieu, 1986:241) In this sense, Bourdieus’s ontological position is pointing to objectivism 2 , the opposite view of constructivism. For Bourdieu, the meaning of the term ‘capital’ is close to accumulation and history; he understands the word capital as accumulation of “something”. Therefore, for him social capital implies the accumulation of relationships linked to social networks. In contrast, for Coleman the term ‘capital’ is not related to the accumulation but to the productive nature of such relationships –or function of such relationships. “Like other forms of capital, social capital is productive, making possible the achievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be possible. Like physical capital and human capital, social capital is not completely fungible but may be specific to certain activities. A given form of social capital that is valuable in facilitating certain actions may be useless or even harmful for others.” (Coleman, 1988:S98). The meaning of the term ‘capital’ is a key aspect to understand the fundamental ideas that each author originally attempted to develop in the conceptualization of social capital. From the perspective of Bourdieu it is the social capital possessed by a group which allows its members to achieve certain collective action that otherwise it would not be possible. He argues that the use and reproduction of social capital among members of a network is given through material or symbolic exchanges; which can be promoted or protected by specific connections – family name, class, ethnical group, school, political party, etc.- and hence by the inherent rules of each association (Bourdieu, 1986:242). Under this view, social capital 1

“Constructionism or constructivism as ontological position asserts that social phenomena and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors. It implies that social phenomena and categories are not only produced through social interaction but that they are in constant revision.” (Bryman, 2004:17) 2 “Objectivism is an ontological position that asserts that social phenomena and their meanings have an existence that is independent of social actors. It implies that social phenomena and the categories that we use in everyday discourse have an existence that is independent or separate from actors.” (Bryman, 2004:16)

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can just be created along the time, and an individual just can get their advantages if he belongs to a social network. For Coleman, social capital is not limited to the obligations and expectations, which depend on trustworthiness of the social network; but it is also framed by information-flow, capability of the social structure, and norms accompanied by sanctions. Although these initial attempts to conceptualize social capital might have had similar intentions, the theoretical foundations diverge from one author to another. Making an effort to find coincidences on these two perspectives, it would be possible to say that both authors were talking about certain kinds of social relations that can be identified in social structures and those social relations can affect individual and/or collective performance, whether economical or social. Those social relations can take the form of familiar relations, friendship, and vicinity; which can produce certain benefits, to the members of a group, as favors, security, secure economic transactions, reciprocity, and solidarity. In a specific form, social capital enacts collective action. However, this effort of mixing these two ontological positions just sets a broad concept of social capital which loses specificity and hence gains ambiguity.

Insertion of Social Capital into the Development Agenda Despite the theoretical developments of Bourdieu and Coleman in late 1980s, the popularization of social capital as analytical entity was largely due to Robert Putnam’s research work published in 1993, Making Democracy Work: civil traditions in modern Italy . His main thesis was that socio-economical development and performance of democratic governments, in different regions of Italy, are influenced by socio-structural aspects such as ‘civic engagement’, ‘institutional performance’, ‘civic traditions’, ‘citizen’s perceptions’, etc. Thus, he applied a quantitative analysis to qualitative entities to correlate the level of socio-economic development with variables associated to social relationships, civics and institutional arrangements. In his work, Putnam considers variables as preference voting (from 1953 to 1979), referendum turnout (from 1974 to 1987), newspaper readership (during 1975) and scarcity of sports and cultural associations (1981) to build an index of civic community in order to measure the civic engagement. He concludes that the institutional performance and economic development are better in the North region of Italy, where was identified a higher level of civic engagement. Second, it was identified more propensity to voluntary associations in the North region of Italy. Based on de Toqueville’s view, Putnam asserts that, this contributes to the effectiveness and stability of democratic government. Third, he observed that preference voting is higher in the South region of Italy; this means that it is practiced patron-client politics in this region, which avoids effective democratic performance. Finally, he found out that “Social trust, norms of reciprocity, networks of civic engagement, and successful cooperation are mutually reinforcing. Effective collaborative institutions require interpersonal skills and trust, but those skills and trust are also inculcated and reinforced by organized collaboration.” (Putnam, 1993:180) Putnam’s work can be considered the first applied research focused on social capital idea. Paradoxically, the theoretical framework is not based on the concept of social capital; it is just in the final chapter where he addresses development issues with this concept. For some critics, this is because Putnam’s idea of using social capital was an afterthought, so that originally it was not meant in his research project to make use of social capital concept to explain causalities of development in Italy regions (Harriss, 2002:14). There are many signs 246

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in Putnam’s work that support this critique. First, the lack of a theoretical framework about social capital; and second, the ideas associated with social capital are vague and general. In his 1993 work, the closest approximation to the concept of social capital is expressed by Putnam in the following lines: “…’strong’ interpersonal ties (like kinship and intimate friendship) are less important than ‘weak’ ties (like acquaintanceship and share membership in secondary associations) in sustaining collective action. Dense but segregated horizontal networks sustain cooperation within each group, but networks that cut across social cleavages nourish wider cooperation.” (Putnam, 1993:175) Although social capital –as it was meant by Coleman or Bourdieu—was not the main theoretical framework in Putnam’s work, he had the merit of being effective in sending a strong message about the importance of social factors on the economy. He demonstrated that there are certain kinds of social relationships that affect economic and social performance of specific regions of Italy. Making Democracy Work: civil traditions in modern Italy was successfully received by scholars and policy makers around the world. According to the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics it was the most frequently cited work in the 1990s in the social sciences area (Harriss, 2002:14). This success became Robert Putnam into a social capital “authority” even with no theoretical development about social capital in his record by 1993. Therefore, his next step was to get a fast and deeper understanding of all the aspects of social capital. After 1993, Putnam published several works related with social capital and democracy performance. The most important were Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Putnam, 2000) and Democracies in Flux (Putnam and Goss, 2002) where he states his own definition of social capital as follows: “By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital -tools and training that enhance individual productivity- the core idea of social capital theory is that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so too social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups […] Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects 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, 2000:18) Focusing on social networks, Putnam adds: “We describe social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity as social capital, because like physical and human capital (tools and training), social networks create value, both individual and collective, and because we can “invest” in networking.” (Putnam & Goss, 2002:8) Maybe the most distinctive aspect of Putnam’s view is his idea of investing in networking. He considers that social capital is something that people can “invest”, so for him the solution for underdevelopment is building social capital. He asserts that social networks provide internal and external returns. Internal returns refer to the benefits of members who belong to the network. On the other hand, external returns are the positive externalities that produce 247

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the network toward those people who do not belong to such network –public goods (Putnam and Goss, 2002:6). Thus, investing in networking can be traduced as “buying a membership”. Focusing on networking, he states several possible dimensions of social capital but he emphasizes on two of them: bridging and bonding. Bridging social capital refers to social networks that bring together people who are unlike one another. Examples of this type of social capital are different ethnic groups linked by common environmental problems; or different minorities groups working together to solve misrepresentation problems in formal structures, etc. On the other hand, bonding social capital refers to close networks of exclusive identities and homogeneous groups. Examples of bonding social capital include ethnic fraternal organizations, church based women’s reading groups, and fashionable country clubs (Putnam, 2000:22). The great acceptation of Putnam’s works in academic spheres did not pass out of World Bank’s sight. Experts of that organization began to generate documents and thoughts about the advantages of social capital to face development issues. In 1997, the World Bank carried out a workshop3 to discuss the present and future of social capital as analytical framework. The discussion and conclusions were quite interesting. Many of the positions assumed by the participants were strongly influenced by the academic background of each participant. Thus, in the workshop, economists as Solow and Arrow stated sceptical positions on considering that networks and social relations can perform in a similar way as machinery or tools for the economy, so they disagreed with the use of the term capital to make reference to the role of social relationships in economic performance (Solow, 2000; Arrow, 2000). Others, as Joseph Stiglitz linked social capital idea to new institutional economics principles, therefore, he points out the impact of formal and informal institutions in the economy. Although several specialists presented interesting and varied perspectives on social capital, the clearest idea in 1997 workshop was that there was no consensus yet about the meaning and role of social capital in the development agenda. However, for the World Bank the idea of social capital represented an interesting perspective with a great potential to be incorporated in its development agenda so that some foundations –as Coleman works—do not contravene its development view. Moreover, the incipient development of social capital concept might be an advantage, in order to shape a “convenient”4 analytical tool for the development purposes of the World Bank. Thus, it was created the The Social Capital Thematic Group of the World Bank, which in words of The World Bank, brings together roughly 250 World Bank professionals from various sectors, networks and families interested in how to apply social capital to World Bank operation. This thematic group in conjunction with the Michigan State University maintains Social Capital official website of The World Bank5.

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“The workshop was an outcome of a series of meetings convened over time beginning in autumn 1993”. Conclusions and a selection of essays presented in the workshop were included in the book Dasgupta, P., & Serageldin, I. (Eds.). (2000). Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. Washington D.C.: The World Bank. 4 “Convenient” analytical tool in terms of Jonh Hariss discourse. Harriss argues that the way that the concept has been developed supports to the idea the marketization of development, where the government has less participation in defining policy aims and regulation. To some extent he considers that social capital concept is a tool to maintain the “consensus of Washington” policies. See (Harriss, 2002: 76-82) 5 Social Capital official website of The World Bank can be consulted at http://go.worldbank.org/GHE8FNWN90. In this website is possible to know the official view of the World Bank in relation with social capital and development.

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Thus, the World Bank would adopt a definition of social capital to refer to “the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions. Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together.” (The World Bank, 2008) As it is possible to observe, this definition is based on Putnam’s view, so it is also broad and generic. This ambiguity helped to the incursion of many scholars from different disciplines to address development adapting the incipient and incomplete theoretical framework of social capital.

The Collective Understanding of Social Capital The encouragement of the World Bank to analyse development issues under social capital eye fostered many scholars around the world to produce research and policy analysis using this perspective. Figure 1 shows the rise of research articles addressing social capital in their title from 1988 to 2008. The increasing use of social capital concept in research papers might suggest that there is a common understanding and agreement in relation with its meaning. However, the reality is different. Today it is difficult to identify, specifically, what is meant by social capital. As it will show, research papers are based on different definitions and backgrounds of social capital. The academic community seems to be considering different scopes, several application methods, as well as different perspectives about the usefulness of social capital for development analysis.

Probably, this inconsistency on research papers can be explained by the apparent difficulty of building a sole definition of social capital based on the original works of Coleman, Bourdieu or Putnam. The best effort of state an inclusive definition of social capital was made by The Word Bank and the result was an ambiguous and generic.

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Consulting electronic databases6, it has been found that, from 1988 to 2008, 539 different academic journals have published 1256 research articles with the term social capital in their titles. Figure 2 shows the distribution of these papers by type of journal. As one can sees social capital concept is not just being used in sociology or economics. Surprisingly, almost 9 percent of those articles were published in Business and Management journals. On the other hand, specialized journals in Health and Medicine register the major number of publications on social capital –232 research articles, which represent 18 percent of overall publications. Journals in Economics and Sociology represent together 18 percent. Specialized journals in development issues have published 107 articles (8.5 percent). 30.5 percent of the articles is distributed among journals specialized in law and justice, environmental issues, political science, regional studies, education, technology, behavioural sciences and political sciences. Finally, 16 percent of the articles have been published in journals with under a generic seal.

Although Health and Medical Journals have published the highest number of articles in relation with other journals, Sociological journals are the most referenced among scientific community. In average, each sociological article is referenced 24 times in contrast with the 17 times of Health and Medical journals. Figure 3 shows the citation average of articles on social capital by journal focus. This figure can be interpreted as the grade of influence of knowledge areas on social capital research. In other words, this citation average indicates the main source where references on social capital are being retrieved. However, a qualitative difference in the referencing of these two types of publications is that Health and Medicine citations points out in applied research, whereas sociological citations are focused on theoretical issues.

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As main search tool was used ISI Web of Knowledge Service which is a major abstracting and indexing database providing citations for the most important research journals, books and other media; it is supported by Mimas at The University of Manchester. Thomson Scientific hosts the service. For more information visit http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/

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Figure 4 shows the journals that have published more articles on social capital. This graph confirms what was shown in figure 2, the knowledge area with more applications of social capital concept is Health and Medicine. Just the journal of Social Science & Medicine has published 74 articles on social capital; in second place is far away American Behavioral Scientist and World Development journals with 19 publications each one.

To get the “big picture” of how social capital is being understood and used by scholars, it is necessary to analyse the most influencing articles on social capital research. Table 1 lists the ten most cited articles. The result of analyzing these popular research articles confirms that there are different ways that social capital concept can be understood, and many of these interpretations are not compatible with each other. For example, Kawachi and co-authors (1997, 1999); Knack and Keefer (1997); and Brehm and Rahn (1997) based their theoretical frameworks on ideas

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of Coleman and Putnam to develop comparative studies –e.g. Kawachi compares 39 US states, Knack and Keefer 29 nations. However, on these works the prevalent notion of social capital is Putnam’s view. Thus, for these authors civic engagement and trust are social capital. Civic engagement is measured by these researchers as the quantity of associations identified (eg. Sport clubs, social groups, religious organizations, etc), and trust is measured through individual perceptions just as Putnam did in Making the Democracy Work (1993), but they ignore other variables considered by Putnam such as institutional performance and civic traditions. The conclusions of Kawachi and coauthors (1997, 1999) and Knack and Keefer (1997) are in the same vein. The former concludes that more social capital means less mortality, the latter says that more social capital means better economic performance, but Knack and Keefer (1997) made an interesting finding, the associational activity is not correlated with economic performance, which is contradictory to Putnam basic principle of social capital. Brehm and Rahn (1997) is not a comparative study but it is based on a national survey on which they analyse the causes and consequences of social capital in relation with individual characteristics. The main conclusion of this article is that civic engagement and interpersonal trust are highly correlated in the US, so this study supports previously findings of Robert Putnam in Italy.

On the other hand, research articles of Sampson and coauthors (1999); Burt (1997); and Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) are developed on a different analytical level, which is more specific, micro-level. In these papers, social capital idea is mostly influenced by James Coleman notion. Their works make emphasis on qualitative aspects of social relations and networks, which are considered as social capital identifiers. The findings of these authors are quite interesting following a different path that authors who use Putnam’s framework as referent. Burt concludes that organizations where decision-making processes are less institutionalized, social capital possessed by managers is a powerful tool for each of them; that is to say, managers with more amounts of social capital have more power in the organization decisions than those with less social capital accumulated. In this case, the level of social capital is measured by the density and size of manager’s personal network. Tsai and Ghoshal state that social interaction, trust, and shared vision are dimensions of social capital. Hence, high

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levels of each dimension will work as a resource exchange among different work units into an organization. For Tsai and Ghoshal, this resource exchange works as innovation enabler. Sampson and co-authors (1999) demonstrate that neighbourhoods where there are residential stability, low population and concentrated affluence exist relationships with strong intergenerational closure –a term used by Coleman to express a specific form of social capital—among members of the neighbourhood. Therefore, neighbourhoods with great amounts of social capital are able to exhibit higher levels of reciprocated exchange and the benefits that it implies. There is a path identified in these seven articles analyzed. Such studies addressed to national-regional level analysis are based on Putnam theoretical framework and methodology, whereas works focused on studying specific groups –such as neighbourhoods, companies, ethnic groups, and so on—are based on Coleman perspective of social capital and analytical categories. It is interesting to realize that Pierre Bourdieu is not a theoretical referent for these applied research articles. It is in the works of Portes (1998) and Woolcock (1998) where Bourdieu is mentioned as important theoretical referent. Nevertheless, this is because as Portes as Woolcock works are theoretical reviews of social capital concept. Portes (1998) is the research paper most referenced by scholars, it reviews sociological roots of concepts linked to the idea of social capital as well influencing approaches from economics and political science in the construction of the concept. He concludes, first, that social capital is a new label for old sociological ideas; and second, that there is little ground to believe that social capital will solve major social problems, as it is promised by its bolder proponents (Portes, 1998: 21). On the other hand, Woolcock (1998), the fourth research paper most cited, just after Coleman (1988) and Kawachi (1997) sees social capital concept as an innovative way to address old collective action problems. Woolcock is conscious of the sociological foundations of the concept as well as the multidisciplinary adaptation that has suffered its analytical background. He considers that the force of social capital is precisely that its mixed roots will allow doing interdisciplinary research to address development issues. “Social capital’s greatest merit, however, is that it provides a credible point of entry for socio-political issues into a comprehensive multi- and interdisciplinary approach to some of the most pressing issues of our time. In social capital, historians, political scientists, anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and policy makers and the various camps within each field –may once again begin to and a common language within which to engage one another in open, constructive debate, a language that disciplinary provincialisms have largely suppressed over the last one-hundred-and-fifty years.” (Woolcock, 1993:188) Despite the great effort of Portes (1998) and Woolcock (1998) in pointing out differences in theoretical foundations of social capital, most scholars do not make clear distinction in authors’ ideas such as Coleman and Putnam. Further, it seems that most researchers just quote Portes and Woolcock to fulfil the bibliography. The identified path in seven of the most cited research articles on social capital seems to be a common rule in social capital research. Analysing the following 20 articles most cited, this trend is confirmed. On one hand, there is one clear stream characterised by researchers using social capital concept under Coleman sociological construct, making emphasis in a qualitative analysis and identifying type of re-

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lationships that are built among individual to engage collective action behaviours. In addition, it is also possible to see that authors who base their research work on Coleman’s ideas are more likely to refer Pierre Bourdieu; on the contrary, those who base their works on Putnam’s view barely consider Bourdieu’s ideas. The other stream is highly influenced by ideas and methodology of Putnam to study social capital. Researches that belong to this stream prefer to use quantitative methods to analyse large data panels, commonly of national statistics or national surveys. It is frequent to see univocal hypothesis such as social capital is directly correlated with economic performance or mortality rates or health perceptions and so on. These studies provide a strict quantitative analysis that offers a general idea of how social capital as variable is affecting the dependent variable, but it barely offers information about the why is that happening. An interesting example is Paxton (1999) about how a different understanding of social capital brings opposite results. Paxton use Bourdieu and Coleman foundations of social capital to test the hypothesis of declination of social capital in the United States expressed by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2001). The results of Paxton’s research work was that there is some decline in a general measure of social capital, a decline in trust in individuals, no general decline in trust in institutions, and no decline in associations. From Paxton view, his research results do not support the thesis of Putnam. However, methodologically, he is using a different theoretical framework than Putnam, so his results and interpretations in relation with Putnam’s work can be dubious. Unfortunately, in recent publications the observed trend has not changed. There is still not yet a common understanding of social capital term among scholars. Research papers published in 2007 and 2008 demonstrate that social capital theory is passing through a crisis. The research methods have been “improved” in terms of the complexity of the analytical tools, but the theoretical referents are still diverse and ambiguous. For example, Behtoui (2007) refers to Flap and Völker (2004) to express that “social capital consists of the resources embedded in an individual’s social networks that are potentially available to her or him through these contacts.” It is clear that this definition is Bourdieu’s perspective of social capital; however this researcher decided to use new authors names to express the same idea. Bellemare and Kröger (2007) that neither cite the foundational authors of social capital and instead refer to (Bowles and Gintis, 2002) to express that “It is now well accepted that social capital rests, among other things, on the trust, trustworthiness, and altruism between individuals, and on self-enforcing norms of behavior, all of which allow trades between two agents to be completed informally, with lower transactions costs than required by complex contracts… ” which basically is Coleman’s conceptualization.

Conclusion It has been shown that perspectives of Pierre Bourdieu and James Coleman have important differences, not only on their ontological position, but also on their ideas about the composition, allocation and reproduction of social capital. Surprisingly, it was observed that most scholars, who explicitly base their research on both perspectives, do not distinguish –or they do not identify—the main theoretical differences of both perspectives. In addition, scholars who consider Robert Putnam as the mentor of social capital concept, usually get an instrumental idea of social capital, based on the variables used in Putnam’s methodology, rather

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than a conceptual meaning. This situation is producing a lack of effective communication between scholars who belong to different knowledge areas. The interdisciplinary mechanisms of collaboration based on social capital concept do not seem to be working. Thus, Management scholars are basically considering Coleman perspective, while Health and Medicine are focusing in Putnam view and methodology; and Sociologists are divided ideologically by Bourdieu and Coleman’s ideas. Nevertheless, pattern in the use of the concept was identified: research articles which study qualitative aspects of social capital use as main reference Coleman’s perspective; whereas large scale quantitative studies are commonly based on Putnam’s perspective. The number of research papers based on social capital concept has been increasing each year as well as the number of areas of knowledge that are adopting this concept to carry out their research. However, this has not represented the clarification –or homogenization—of the concept. That is the case of Health and Medicine, which are the largest areas applying social capital concept; however, they are not contributing in the clarification or consolidation of the concept. This is because they do not discern the concept in their research, they just apply one of the two main perspectives to produce results –basically, they are using Putnam methods. As it was shown, social capital has been understood in several ways and inscribed in different areas of knowledge. It has been seen as social networks and associated to analytical tools of networks theories. It has also been linked to trust and solidarity behaviours; hence it has been associated to behavioural theories –e.g. rational choice theory. Similarly, it has been understood as civic traditions and therefore based on history of nations, customs and traditions, or ethnicity. Paradoxically, this wide scope –or gap- of the concept of social capital fits almost any social theory foundations. This is producing ambiguous adaptations of social capital concept in social research. Effective interdisciplinary research based on social capital concept requires a well defined theoretical framework. Therefore, it is necessary to differentiate explicitly Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam’s perspectives. It is not desirable to continue in the anarchical way that has followed the development of this concept over the last 20 years. Just as physical capital is clearly associated to specific characteristics of tools and machines; or human capital is associated to academic credentials and abilities; social capital must be specified in a similar way. It is crucial to create basic “standards” or “codes” of understanding between scholars of different areas or with different backgrounds. In this sense, it is necessary to stop using social capital in the multiples ways it has being used. Twenty years after its creation, it is not possible to assert that social capital is a consolidated and well recognised concept in development studies. Just as Harriss points out, conceptualizations on social capital “provide a spacious kind of hanger on which those of different persuasions are able to hang their coats” (Harriss, 2002:1). The real value and usefulness of an interdisciplinary concept must be seen in terms of effective communication between different areas of knowledge to address common research issues. It is precisely, the lack of consistency that makes social capital concept vulnerable to criticisms. It is imperative to start building a general consensus about the scope and boundaries of this concept to carry out interdisciplinary research.

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References Arrow, Kenneth J. 2000. Observations on social captial. In Dasgupta, P., & Serageldin, I. (Eds.). (2000). Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. Washington D.C.: The World Bank. Becker, G S. 1964. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. Chicago, University of Chicago Press Bourdieu, Pierre, 1986. The forms of capital, Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, J. Richardson (ed.), Greenwood, New York, Bryman, Alan. 2004. Social Research Methods. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press Brehm, J., and W. Rahn. 1997. Individual-level evidence for the causes and consequences of social capital. American Journal of Political Science 41 (3):999-1023. Burt, R. S. 1997. The contingent value of social capital. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 339365. Coleman, J. S. 1988. Social Capital in the Creation of Human-Capital. American Journal of Sociology 94:S95-S120. Dasgupta, P., & Serageldin, I. (Eds.). 2000. Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. Washington D.C.: The World Bank. Fischer, G. 1959. Business-Management Social Capital. Zeitschrift Fur Betriebswirtschaft 29 (12):725736. Granovetter, M. 1985. Economic Action, Social Structure, and Embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 481-510. Hanifan, L J. 1916. The rural school community center. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 67:130-138 Harriss, John. 2002. Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital. Anthem Press. Kawachi, I., B. P. Kennedy, and R. Glass. 1999. Social capital and self-rated health: A contextual analysis. American Journal of Public Health 89 (8):1187-1193. Kawachi, I., B. P. Kennedy, K. Lochner, and D. ProthrowStith. 1997. Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. American Journal of Public Health 87 (9):1491-1498. Knack, S., and P. Keefer. 1997. Does social capital have an economic payoff? A cross-country investigation. Quarterly Journal of Economics 112:1251-1288. Lorcher, S. 1982. Japans Social Capital in International Comparison. Internationales Asienforum 13 (1-2):103-135. Loury, G C. 1977. A dynamic theory of racial income differences. In Women, Minorities, and Employment Discrimination, d. PA Wallace, AM La Mond, pp. 153.86. Lexington, MA: Heath Mincer, Jacob. 1958. “Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution”. The Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 66, No. 4 (Aug., 1958), 281-302 Nishibe, S., and Y. Kiyokawa. 1971. Economic Growth and Social Capital. Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics 11 (2):48-64. Ostrom, Elinor. 2000. Social capital: a fad or a fundamental concept?. In Dasgupta, P., & Serageldin, I. (Eds.). 2000. Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. Washington D.C.: The World Bank. Ponton, R. 1975. Birth of Psychological Novel - Cultural Capital, Social Capital and Literary Strategy at End of 19th-Century. Actes De La Recherche En Sciences Sociales (4):66-81. Portes, A. 1998. Social Capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 24:1-24. Putnam, R. 1993 Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, PUP and (NJ) __________2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster Putnam, R., & Goss, K. 2002. Introduction. In R. Putnam (Ed.), Democracies in flux: the evolution of social capital in contemporary society . New York: Oxford UP.

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Sampson, R. J., J. D. Morenoff, and F. Earls. 1999. Beyond social capital: Spatial dynamics of collective efficacy for children. American Sociological Review 64 (5):633-660. Solow, Robert M. 2000. Notes on social capital and economic performance. In Dasgupta, P., & Serageldin, I. (Eds.). (2000). Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. Washington D.C.: The World Bank. Tsai, W. P., and S. Ghoshal. 1998. Social capital and value creation: The role of intrafirm networks. Academy of Management Journal 41 (4):464-476. Tsokhas, K. 1981. Social Capital, Interdependence and Japanese Multi-Nationals. Journal of Contemporary Asia 11 (4):449-486. Woolcock, M. 1998. Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework. Theory and Society 27 (2):151-208. Woolcock, M & Narayan, D. 2000. Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. The World Bank Research Observer 15: 225-249 World Bank. 2008. Social capital website http://go.worldbank.org/GHE8FNWN90

About the Author Ignacio Macedo Castillejos Ignacio Macedo Castillejos is a researcher specialized in the analysis of public policies. His expertise includes research and consulting activities on program and project evaluation techniques, sustainable development strategies, and information management strategies.Ignacio has worked as National Consultant for FAO in Mexico, and he is partner of Intervención Estratégica Consultores S.A. a Mexico City-based consulting firm. He has been lecturer of Economic Policy at Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM, Mexico) and has participated as project researcher for the Research and Teaching Centre in Economics (CIDE, Mexico). Currently Ignacio is postgraduate researcher of the School of Development Studies at University of East Anglia, UK. His research is sponsored by the National Council of Science and Technology of the Mexican Government (CONACYT).ACADEMIC BACKGROUND Ignacio is Economist graduated with honours in the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM, Mexico). He holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Public Administration from the Research and Teaching Centre in Economics (CIDE, Mexico) as well as a Master’s degree in International Development from The University of East Anglia (UEA, UK). As postgraduate student he participated in an exchange program with the School of Public Affairs of the University of Baltimore, (UB, USA).

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EDITORS Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. Bill Cope, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Patrick Baert, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK. Norma Burgess, Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA. Peter Harvey, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia. Vangelis Intzidis, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece. Paul James, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Mary Kalantzis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. José Luis Ortega Martín, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. Bertha Ochieng, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK. Francisco Fernandez Palomares, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. Miguel A. Pereyra, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. Constantine D. Skordoulis, University of Athens, Athens, Greece. Chad Turnbull, ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain.

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