Green and Haines Definition of Social Capita

In the 1990s the concept of social capital—defined here as the norms and networks that enable people to act collectively—enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence across all the social science disciplines. The authors trace the evolution of social capital research as it pertains to economic development and identify four distinct approaches the research has taken: communitarian, networks, institutional, and synergy. The evidence suggests that of the four, the synergy view, with its emphasis on incorporating different levels and dimensions of social capital and its recognition of the positive and negative outcomes that social capital can generate, has the greatest empirical support and lends itself best to comprehensive and coherent policy prescriptions. The authors argue that a significant virtue of the idea of and discourse on social capital is that it helps to bridge orthodox divides among scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

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The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000), pp. 225–49.

© 2000 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK 225

Social Capital: Implications for

Development Theory, Research,

and Policy

Michael Woolcock

•

Deepa Narayan

In the 1990s the concept of social capital—defined here as the norms and networks that

enable people to act collectively—enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence across all the

social science disciplines. The authors trace the evolution of social capital research as it

pertains to economic development and identify four distinct approaches the research has

taken: communitarian, networks, institutional, and synergy. The evidence suggests that

of the four, the synergy view, with its emphasis on incorporating different levels and

dimensions of social capital and its recognition of the positive and negative outcomes that

social capital can generate, has the greatest empirical support and lends itself best to com-

prehensive and coherent policy prescriptions. The authors argue that a significant virtue

of the idea of and discourse on social capital is that it helps to bridge orthodox divides

among scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

What is social capital? How does it affect economic development? What are the

implications for theory, research, and policy? These questions lie at the heart of

recent attempts to make sense of the burgeoning literature on social capital and to

ascertain its relationship to economic development. In this article we endeavor to

answer each of these questions; in so doing, we provide an overview of the scholar-

ship on social capital for those unfamiliar with the term as well as a sense of coher-

ence and direction to those embarking on new empirical research and policy analysis

in this rich field.

What Is Social Capital?

"It's not what you know, it's who you know. " This common aphorism sums up

much of the conventional wisdom regarding social capital. It is wisdom born of

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 226

experience— that gaining membership to exclusive clubs requires inside contacts,

that close competitions for jobs and contracts are usually won by those with friends

in high places. When people fall on hard times, they know it is their friends and

family who constitute the final safety net. Conscientious parents devote hours to the

school board and to helping their children with homework, only too aware that a

child' s intelligence and motivation are not enough to ensure a bright future. Some of

our happiest and most rewarding hours are spent talking with neighbors, sharing

meals with friends, participating in religious gatherings, and volunteering for com-

munity projects.

Intuitively, then, the basic idea of social capital is that a person's family, friends,

and associates constitute an important asset, one that can be called on in a crisis,

enjoyed for its own sake, and leveraged for material gain. What is true for individu-

als, moreover, also holds for groups. Those communities endowed with a diverse

stock of social networks and civic associations are in a stronger position to confront

poverty and vulnerability (Moser 1996; Narayan 1995), resolve disputes (Schafft

1998; Varshney 2000), and take advantage of new opportunities (Isham 1999).

Conversely, the absence of social ties can have an equally important impact. Office

workers, for example, fear being left out of the loop on important decisions; ambi-

tious professionals recognize that getting ahead in a new venture typically requires an

active commitment to networking. A defining feature of being poor, moreover, is

that one is not a member of—or may even be actively excluded from—certain social

networks and institutions that could be used to secure good jobs and decent housing

(Wilson 1987, 1996).

Intuition and everyday language also recognize an additional feature of social capital:

that it has costs as well as benefits, that social ties can be a liability as well as an asset.

Most parents, for example, worry that their teenage children will fall in with the

wrong crowd and that peer pressure and a strong desire for acceptance will induce

them to take up harmful habits. Even close family members can overstay their wel-

come. At the institutional level, many countries and organizations have nepotism

laws, in explicit recognition that personal connections can be used to discriminate

unfairly, distort, and corrupt. Everyday language and life experience, in short, teach

that the social ties individuals have can be both a blessing and a blight, while those

they do not have can deny them access to key resources. These features of social

capital are well documented by the empirical evidence and have important implica-

tions for economic development and poverty reduction.

These examples suggest a more formal definition: social capital refers to the norms

and networks that enable people to act collectively. This simple definition serves a

number of purposes. First, it focuses on the sources, rather than the consequences, of

social capital (Portes 1998) while recognizing that important features of social capi-

tal, such as trust and reciprocity, are developed in an iterative process. Second, this

definition permits the incorporation of different dimensions of social capital and

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 227

recognizes that communities can have access to more or less of them. The poor, for

example, may have a close-knit and intensive stock of "bonding" social capital that

they can leverage to "get by" (Briggs 1998; Holzmann and Jorgensen 1999), but

they lack the more diffuse and extensive "bridging" social capital deployed by the

nonpoor to "get ahead" (Barr 1998; Kozel and Parker 2000; Narayan 1999). Ac-

cordingly, such an approach allows the argument that it is different combinations of

bonding and bridging social capital that are responsible for the range of outcomes

observed above and incorporates a dynamic component in which optimal combina-

tions of these dimensions change over time. Third, while this definition presents the

community (rather than individuals, households, or the state) as the primary unit of

analysis, it recognizes that individuals and households (as members of a given com-

munity) can nonetheless appropriate social capital and that the way communities

themselves are structured turns in large part on their relationship with the state.

Weak, hostile, or indifferent governments have a profoundly different effect on com-

munity life and development projects, for example, than do governments that re-

spect civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, honor contracts, and resist corruption

(Isham and Kaufmann 1999).

This conceptualization of the role of social relationships in development repre-

sents an important departure from earlier theoretical approaches and therefore has

important implications for contemporary development research and policy. Until

the 1990s the major theories of development held rather narrow, even contradictory,

views about the role of social relationships in economic development and offered few

constructive policy recommendations. In the 1950s and 1960s, for example, tradi-

tional social relationships and ways of life were viewed as impediments to develop-

ment. When modernization theorists explained "the absence or failure of capital-

ism," Moore (1997:289) correctly notes, "the focus [was] on social relations as

obstacles." As an influential United Nations (1951) document of the time put it, for

development to proceed, "ancient philosophies have to be scrapped; old social insti-

tutions have to disintegrate; bonds of caste, creed and race have to burst; and large

numbers of persons who cannot keep up with progress have to have their expecta-

tions of a comfortable life frustrated" (cited in Escobar 1995:3).

This view gave way in the 1970s to the arguments of dependency and world-

systems theorists, who held that social relations among corporate and political elites

were a primary mechanism of capitalist exploitation. The social characteristics of

poor countries and communities were defined almost exclusively in terms of their

relation to the means of production and the inherent antipathy between the interests

of capital and labor. Little mention was made of the possibility (or desirability) of

mutually beneficial relationships between workers and owners, of the tremendous

variation in the degree of success recorded by developing countries, or of political

strategies— other than revolution — by which the poor could improve their lot. At

the same time, communitarian perspectives stressed the inherent beneficence and

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 228

self-sufficiency of local communities but underestimated the negative aspects of com-

munal obligations, overestimated the virtues of isolationism and self-sufficiency, and

neglected the importance of social relations in constructing effective and account-

able formal institutions. For their part, neoclassical and public choice theorists—

whose voices were the most influential in the 1980s and early 1990s—assigned no

distinctive properties to social relations. These perspectives, which focused on the

strategic choices of rational individuals interacting under various time, budgetary,

and legal constraints, held that groups (including firms) existed primarily to lower

the transaction costs of exchange; given undistorted market signals, the optimal size

and combination of groups would duly emerge.

The major development theories, then, construed social relations as singularly

burdensome, exploitative, liberating, or irrelevant. Reality, unfortunately, does not

conform so neatly to these descriptions and their corresponding policy prescriptions.

Events in the post–cold war era—from ethnic violence and civil war to financial

crises and the acknowledgement of widespread corruption—demand a more sophis-

ticated appraisal of the vices, virtues, and vicissitudes of the social dimension as it

pertains to the wealth and poverty of nations (Woolcock forthcoming). The litera-

ture on social capital, in its broadest sense, represents a first approximation to the

answer to this challenge. It is a literature to which all the social science disciplines

have contributed, and it is beginning to generate a remarkable consensus regarding

the role and importance of institutions and communities in development. Indeed,

one of the primary benefits of the idea of social capital is that it allows scholars,

policymakers, and practitioners from different disciplines to enjoy an unprecedented

level of cooperation and dialogue (Brown 1998; Brown and Ashman 1996).

Four Perspectives on Social Capital

and Economic Development

The letter and spirit of social capital have a long intellectual history in the social

sciences (Platteau 1994; Woolcock 1998), but the sense in which the term is used

today dates back more than 80 years to the writings of Lyda J. Hanifan, then the

superintendent of schools in West Virginia. Explaining the importance of commu-

nity participation in enhancing school performance, Hanifan (1916:130) invoked

the concept of social capital, describing it as

those tangible substances [that] count for most in the daily lives of people:

namely good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the

individuals and families who make up a social unit. . . . If [an individual

comes] into contact with his neighbor, and they with other neighbors, there

will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 229

social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the

substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community.

After Hanifan the idea of social capital disappeared for several decades but was rein-

vented in the 1950s by a team of Canadian urban sociologists (Seely, Sim, and Loosely

1956), in the 1960s by an exchange theorist (Homans 1961) and an urban scholar

(Jacobs 1961), and in the 1970s by an economist (Loury 1977). None of these writ-

ers, interestingly, cited earlier work on the subject, but all used the same umbrella

term to encapsulate the vitality and significance of community ties. The seminal

research by Coleman (1987, 1988, 1990) on education and by Putnam (1993, 1995)

on civic participation and institutional performance, however, has provided the in-

spiration for most of the current work, which has since coalesced around studies in

nine primary fields: families and youth behavior; schooling and education; commu-

nity life (virtual and civic); work and organizations; democracy and governance; col-

lective action; public health and environment; crime and violence; and economic

development.1

In this paper we are concerned with this final category and related work in politi-

cal economy and new institutional economics. Research on social capital and eco-

nomic development can be categorized into four distinct perspectives: the

communitarian view, the networks view, the institutional view, and the synergy view.

The Communitarian View

The communitarian perspective equates social capital with such local organizations

as clubs, associations, and civic groups. Communitarians, who look at the number

and density of these groups in a given community, hold that social capital is inher-

ently good, that more is better, and that its presence always has a positive effect on a

community' s welfare. This perspective has made important contributions to analy-

ses of poverty by stressing the centrality of social ties in helping the poor manage risk

and vulnerability. As Dordick (1997) notes, the poor have "something left to lose"—

each other.

In their celebration of community and civil society, however, many enthusiasts of

this view of social capital have ignored its important downside (Portes and Landolt

1996). For example, where communities or networks are isolated, parochial, or work-

ing at cross-purposes to society's collective interests (in ghettos, gangs, drug cartels,

and so on), productive social capital is replaced by what Rubio (1997)—in discuss-

ing Colombia— calls perverse social capital, which greatly hinders development. Many

benefits certainly are associated with being a member of a highly integrated commu-

nity, but there are also significant costs, and for some, the costs may greatly outweigh

the benefits. Consider, for instance, the bright girls who are taken out of village

schools in India because of community expectations. The social networks underly-

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 230

ing organized crime syndicates in Latin America and Russia may generate large nega-

tive externalities for society in the form of lost lives, wasted resources, and pervasive

uncertainty. The communitarian perspective also implicitly assumes that communi-

ties are homogenous entities that automatically include and benefit all members. But

the extensive literature on caste inequality, ethnic exclusion, and gender discrimina-

tion— the bleak outcomes often produced and maintained by community pressures—

suggests otherwise (Narayan and Shah 1999).

Evidence from the developing world demonstrates why merely having high levels

of social solidarity or informal groups does not necessarily lead to economic prosper-

ity. In Kenya a participatory poverty assessment recorded more than 200,000 com-

munity groups active in rural areas, but most were unconnected to outside resources

and were unable to improve the lot of the poor (Narayan and Nyamwaya 1996). A

World Bank (1989) report on Rwanda cited more than 3,000 registered coopera-

tives and farmers groups and an estimated 30,000 informal groups, yet these groups

were unable to prevent one of history's most gruesome civil wars. In many Latin

American countries, indigenous groups are often marked by high levels of social

solidarity, but they remain excluded economically because they lack the resources

and access to power that are necessary to shift the rules of the game in their favor

(Narayan 1999). This is also the case in Haiti, where social capital, "rich at the local

level," is employed by peasant groups to " meet labor requirements, gain access to

land, protect clientship in the marketplace, promote mutual aid, assure protection

from state authorities, and generally manage risk." Even so, these groups cannot

overcome the crippling effects of colonialism, corruption, "geographical isolation,

political exclusion, and social polarization" (all quotations from White and Smucker

1998:1–3).

The Networks View

A second perspective on social capital, which attempts to account for both its upside

and its downside, stresses the importance of vertical as well as horizontal associations

between people and of relations within and among such organizational entities as

community groups and firms. Building on work by Granovetter (1973), it recog-

nizes that strong intracommunity ties give families and communities a sense of iden-

tity and common purpose (Astone and others 1999). This view also stresses, how-

ever, that without weak intercommunity ties, such as those that cross various social

divides based on religion, class, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status, strong

horizontal ties can become a basis for the pursuit of narrow sectarian interests. In the

recent popular literature, the former has been called "bonding" and the latter "bridg-

ing" social capital (Gittell and Vidal 1998). Different combinations of these dimen-

sions, it is argued, are responsible for the range of outcomes that can be attributed to

social capital. This more nuanced perspective, which we call the networks view, re-

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 231

gards the tension between social capital's virtues and vices as a defining property, one

that explains in part why scholars and policymakers have been so persistently am-

bivalent about its potential as a theoretical construct and policy instrument.

The networks view of social capital is closely associated with Burt (1992, 1997,

1998); Fafchamps and Minten (1999); Massey (1998); Massey and Espinosa (1997);

Portes (1995, 1997, 1998); and Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993). It is characterized

by two key propositions. First, social capital is a double-edged sword. It can provide

a range of valuable services for community members, ranging from baby-sitting and

house-minding to job referrals and emergency cash. But there are also costs in that

those same ties can place considerable noneconomic claims on members' sense of

obligation and commitment, with negative economic consequences. Group loyalties

may be so strong that they isolate members from information about employment

opportunities, foster a climate of ridicule toward efforts to study and work hard, or

siphon off hard-won assets (say, to support recent immigrants from the home coun-

try). Portes and Sensenbrenner (1993) cite the case of prosperous Asian immigrants

who anglicized their names in order to divest themselves of communal obligations to

subsequent cohorts. Second, the sources of social capital need to be distinguished

from the consequences derived from them. Imputing only desirable outcomes to

social capital, or equating them with it, ignores the possibility that these outcomes

may be attained at another group's expense, that given outcomes may be subopti-

mal, or that desirable outcomes attained today come at the price of significant costs

tomorrow.

These results have given rise to the logical conclusion that both strong intra-

community ties and weak extracommunity networks are needed to avoid making

tautological claims regarding the efficacy of social capital. (Without this distinction,

for example, it could be argued that successful groups are distinguished by their

dense community ties, failing to consider the possibility that the same ties could be

preventing success in another otherwise similar group.) Accordingly, the networks

view argues that communities can be characterized by their endowments of these

two dimensions of social capital and that different combinations of these dimensions

account for the range of outcomes associated with social capital (table 1).

Furthermore, as community members' welfare changes over time, so too does the

optimal calculus of costs and benefits associated with particular combinations of

bonds and bridges. Poor entrepreneurs, for example, initially dependent on their

Table 1. Dimensions of Social Capital at the Community Level

Extracommunity networks Intracommunity ties (bonding)

(bridging) Low High

Low Outcasts Poor villagers

High Recent rural-to-urban Successful members of

migrants microfinance programs

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 232

immediate neighbors and friends (their bonding social capital) for credit, insurance,

and support, require access to more extensive product and factor markets as their

businesses expand. Granovetter (1995) argues that economic development takes place

through a mechanism that allows individuals to draw initially on the benefits of close

community membership but that also enables them to acquire the skills and re-

sources to participate in networks that transcend their community, thereby progres-

sively joining the economic mainstream.

These insights can be demonstrated graphically and applied to poverty reduction

more generally. Figure 1 shows that as the social networks of the poor become more

diverse, so too does their welfare. The social capital residing in a given network can

be leveraged or used more efficiently, which is essentially the genius of group-based

credit programs such as the well-known Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (van Bastelaer

1999). Poor village women with no material collateral are given loans on the basis of

their membership in a small peer group, which helps them start or expand a small

business and thereby improve their families' welfare (A). But the economic returns

DIVERSITY OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

W

E

L

F

A

R

E

Destitution

Getting by Getting ahead

Offense

A

B

C

D

E

BRIDGING

BONDING

Defense

Figure 1. Social Capital and Poverty Transitions

Source: Woolcock (2000).

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 233

to any given group soon reach a limit (B), especially when they rely on high endow-

ments of "bonding" social capital. If the group continues to expand—for example,

through the arrival of subsequent cohorts from the village—its resources may be-

come overwhelmed, thereby reducing the well-being of long-established members

(C). Similarly, long-term members of group-based credit programs may find that

obligations and commitments to their colleagues present obstacles to further ad-

vancement, especially for the more ambitious (Woolcock 1999). In these circum-

stances, many poor people partially divest themselves of their immediate community

ties (D) and find a potentially more diverse network where "bridging" social capital

is more abundant and economic opportunities more promising (E). Migration from

villages to cities is the most dramatic example of this situation, but Portes and

Sensenbrenner' s (1993) name-changing Asian immigrants are doing essentially the

same thing.

The networks view has been employed with great effect in recent development

research. In their analysis of poor communities in rural areas of northern India, for

example, Kozel and Parker (2000) report that social groups among poor villagers

serve vitally important protection, risk management, and solidarity functions. It is

the more extensive and leveraged networks of the nonpoor, by contrast, that are used

for strategic advantage and the advancement of material interests. Crudely put, the

networks of the poor play defense, while those of the nonpoor play offense. Barr

(1998) reports strikingly similar results from her work on the relationship between

the structure of business networks and enterprise performance in Africa. Poor entre-

preneurs, operating small local firms in traditional industries, form what Barr calls

solidarity networks to exchange personal information about members' conduct and

intentions. The primary function of these networks is to reduce risk and uncertainty.

Larger regional firms, in contrast, coalesce into innovation networks that share knowl-

edge about technology and global markets with the explicit goal of enhancing enter-

prise profit, productivity, and market share (see also Van Dijk and Rabellotti 1997;

Fafchamps and Minten 1999). Far from dismissing the vitality of traditional village

groups in poor communities (the modernization view) or romanticizing it (the

communitarian view), the networks view in effect recognizes that these groups can

both help and hinder economic advancement.

The clear challenge to social capital theory, research, and policy from the net-

works perspective is thus to identify the conditions under which the many positive

aspects of bonding social capital in poor communities can be harnessed and its integ-

rity retained (and, if necessary, its negative aspects dissipated), while simultaneously

helping the poor gain access to formal institutions and a more diverse stock of bridg-

ing social capital. This process is fraught with multiple dilemmas, however, espe-

cially for external nongovernmental organizations, extension services, and develop-

ment agencies, because it may entail altering social systems that are the product of

longstanding cultural traditions or of powerful vested interests.

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 234

The particular strength of the networks view is its willingness to engage in detailed

policy discussions on the basis of compelling empirical evidence and detailed assess-

ments of the veracity of competing explanations. This view, however, minimizes the

"public good" nature of social groups, regarding any benefits of group activity as

primarily the property of the particular individuals involved. Its proponents thus are

highly skeptical of arguments that social capital can (or should) be measured across

larger social aggregates, such as societies or nations (Portes 1998). Neither does the

networks approach explicitly incorporate institutions at the societal level and their

capacity to both shape and be shaped by local communities. To be sure, the net-

works perspective recognizes that weak laws and overt discrimination can under-

mine efforts by poor minorities to act in their collective interest, but the role com-

munities play in shaping institutional performance generally, and the enormous

potential of positive state-society relations in particular, are largely ignored.

The Institutional View

A third perspective of social capital, which we call the institutional view, argues that

the vitality of community networks and civil society is largely the product of the

political, legal, and institutional environment. Where the communitarian and net-

works perspectives largely treat social capital as an independent variable giving rise to

various outcomes, both good and bad, the institutional view instead views social

capital as a dependent variable. This approach argues that the very capacity of social

groups to act in their collective interest depends on the quality of the formal institu-

tions under which they reside (North 1990). It also stresses that the performance of

states and firms themselves depends on their own internal coherence, credibility, and

competence and on their external accountability to civil society.

Research from the institutional view has two variants, both of which have yielded

remarkably complementary results. The first approach, described by Skocpol (1995,

1996), encompasses case studies based on comparative history and contends that it is

wrong to argue that firms and communities thrive to the extent that governments

retreat. On the contrary, Skocpol shows, civil society thrives to the extent that the

state actively encourages it. Tendler's (1997) research on the political economy of

decentralization in Brazil similarly stresses the importance of good government for

making local programs work.

A second, and increasingly influential, approach relies on quantitative cross-

national studies of the effects of government performance and social divisions on

economic performance. This approach, pioneered by Knack and Keefer (1995, 1997),

equates social capital with the quality of a society's political, legal, and economic

institutions. Drawing on various indexes of institutional quality compiled by invest-

ment agencies and human rights groups, these studies show that items such as "general-

ized trust," "rule of law," "civil liberties," and "bureaucratic quality" are positively

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 235

associated with economic growth. In a recent review of this particular strand of the

literature, Knack (1999:28) concludes that "social capital reduces poverty rates and

improves, or at a minimum does not worsen, income inequality."

Collier and Gunning (1999) employ a variation of this view in their analyses of

the causes of slow growth in Africa (see also Collier 1998, 1999; Temple 1998).

Distinguishing between civic and government social capital, they show that slow

growth occurs in societies with both high levels of ethnic fragmentation and weak

political rights. Although Rodrik (1998, 1999) does not employ the terminology of

social capital, he makes a similar argument, demonstrating that economies with di-

vided societies and weak institutions for managing conflict respond sluggishly to

shocks. Easterly (2000) also reports that societies able to generate and sustain a middle-

class consensus are those most likely to produce stable and positive rates of growth.

The related literature on social capabilities and development (Hall and Jones 1999;

Temple and Johnson 1998) tells a similar story.

Several empirical and methodological questions can be raised about these studies,

but in aggregate their message is loud and clear. Rampant corruption, frustrating

bureaucratic delays, suppressed civil liberties, vast inequality, divisive ethnic ten-

sions, and failure to safeguard property rights (to the extent that they exist at all) are

major impediments to prosperity. In countries where these conditions prevail, there

is little to show for well-intentioned efforts to build schools, hospitals, roads, and

communications infrastructure or to encourage foreign investment (World Bank

1998). Investments in civic and government social capital are thus highly comple-

mentary to investments in more orthodox forms of capital accumulation.

The very strength of the institutional view in addressing macroeconomic policy

concerns, however, is also a weakness in that it lacks a microeconomic component.

Freedoms, rights, and liberties, for example, have to be secured by government. Co-

herent and competent bureaucracies may take decades to construct and may yield

benefits more immediately suited to corporate interests than to those of the poor. In

providing broad statistical evidence for the importance of social capital, the subtlety,

richness, and enormous variation gleaned from case studies of individual countries

and communities is lost, as are the voices of those most directly affected by weak

public institutions: the poor.

The Synergy View

In recognition of this disconnect, a number of scholars have recently proposed what

might be called a synergy view, which attempts to integrate the compelling work

emerging from the networks and institutional camps. Although the synergy view

traces its intellectual antecedents to earlier work in comparative political economy

and anthropology, its most influential body of research was published in a special

issue of World Development (1996). The contributors to this volume examined cases

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 236

from Brazil, India, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, and Russia in search of the con-

ditions that foster developmental synergies—dynamic professional alliances and re-

lationships between and within state bureaucracies and various actors in civil society.

Three broad conclusions emerged from these studies:

•Neither the state nor societies are inherently good or bad; governments,

corporations, and civic groups are variable in the impact they can have on the

attainment of collective goals.

•States, firms, and communities alone do not possess the resources needed to

promote broad-based, sustainable development; complementarities and partner-

ships forged both within and across these different sectors are required. Iden-

tifying the conditions under which these synergies emerge (or fail to emerge) is

thus a central task of development research and practice.

•Of these different sectors, the state 's role in facilitating positive developmental

outcomes is the most important and problematic. This is so because the state is

not only the ultimate provider of public goods (stable currencies, public health,

universal education) and the final arbiter and enforcer of the rule of law (prop-

erty rights, due process, freedom of speech and association) but is also the actor

best able to facilitate enduring alliances across the boundaries of class, ethnicity,

race, gender, politics, and religion. Communities and firms also have an impor-

tant role to play in creating the conditions that produce, recognize, and reward

good governance. In otherwise difficult institutional environments, community

leaders who are able to identify and engage what Fox (1992) calls "pockets of

efficiency within the state" become agents of more general reform.

Evans (1992, 1995, 1996), one of the primary contributors to this view, con-

cludes that synergy between government and citizen action is based on complementarity

and embeddedness. Complementarity refers to mutually supportive relations between

public and private actors and is exemplified in legal frameworks that protect rights of

association and in more humble measures such as chambers of commerce to facili-

tate exchanges among community associations and business groups. Embeddedness

refers to the nature and extent of the ties connecting citizens and public officials. The

classic examples are from irrigation, in which the lowest-level irrigation officials are

from the community being served; they are enmeshed in local social relations and

hence are under pressure by the community to perform and be responsive to them.

Importantly, this approach works only where the actions of public officials are si-

multaneously bound by performance-oriented organizational environments that are

competent, coherent, and credible. As the case of Russia amply demonstrates, weak

public institutions and deep cleavages between powerful authorities and ordinary

citizens can lead to political instability, rampant corruption, rising inequality, and

capital flight (Rose 1998).

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 237

Developing these ideas, Woolcock (1998) shows that a range of development out-

comes flows from different types and combinations of community capacity and state

functioning. Narayan (1999) integrates the core ideas of bridging social capital and

state-society relations and suggests that different interventions are needed for differ-

ent combinations of governance and bridging social capital in a group, community,

or society (figure 2). In societies (or communities) with good governance and high

levels of bridging social capital, there is complementarity between state and society,

and economic prosperity and social order are likely. But when a society's social capi-

tal inheres mainly in primary social groups disconnected from one another, the more

powerful groups dominate the state, to the exclusion of other groups. Such societies,

which include countries in Latin America with large excluded indigenous popula-

tions, are characterized by latent conflict. In these circumstances, a key task for sub-

ordinate groups and activists is to forge broad, coherent coalitions (Keck and Sikkink

1998) and nurture relations with allies in positions of power (Fox and Brown 1998);

should they be successful, weak groups may begin to accrue rights and resources

previously denied them. Similarly, a state that opens up and explicitly builds bridges

Note: Complementarity refers to the optimal interaction of government and markets in civil society;

substitution is the replacement by informal organizations (families, networks, and so on) of services ordinarily

provided by governments and institutions.

Source: Adapted from Narayan (1999).

Figure 2. Relationship between Bridging Social Capital and Governance

S

U

B

S

T

I

T

U

T

I

O

N

C

O

M

P

L

E

M

E

N

T

A

R

I

T

Y

Low levels of

bridging social

capital

Exclusion

(latent conflict)

Conflict Coping

Social and economic

well-being

High levels of

bridging social

capital

Dysfunctional states

Well-functioning states

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 238

to excluded groups increases the likelihood that the poor will be able to gain access to

the resources and services to which they are entitled.

Alternatively, state-society relations may degenerate into conflict, violence, war or

anarchy— a breakdown that allows warlords, local mafias, and guerrilla movements

to take over the power and authority of the state. Restoring economic prosperity and

peace to Rwanda, for example, will involve forging a measure of reconciliation be-

tween two ethnic groups. Often, when citizens are deprived of services and benefits,

informal networks substitute for the failed state and form the basis of coping strate-

gies. This is the case in Benin and Togo, where women, denied access to formal

credit, established informal revolving credit societies; in Tanzania the absence of

police protection has led some villages to rely on their own system of security guards

(Narayan and others 2000).

When representatives of the state, the corporate sector, and civil society establish

common forums through which they can pursue common goals, development can

proceed. In these circumstances social capital has a role as a mediating variable that is

shaped by public and private institutions. This shaping is an inherently contentious

and political process, one in which the role of the state is crucial. Moreover, the

fundamental social transformation of economic development—from traditional

kinship-based community life to societies organized by formal institutions—alters

the calculus of costs and benefits associated with different dimensions of social capi-

tal and the desirable combinations of these dimensions (Berry 1993). Although de-

velopment struggles are inherently political, they are not always won by the most

powerful, nor do challenges to authority always entail violent conflict. Patient efforts

by intermediaries to establish partnerships between associations of the poor and out-

siders can reap significant dividends (Isham, Narayan, and Pritchett 1995). As Uphoff

(1992:273) points out,

paradoxical though it may seem, "top-down" efforts are usually needed to

introduce, sustain, and institutionalize "bottom-up" development. We are

commonly constrained to think in "either-or" terms —the more of one the

less of the other—when both are needed in a positive-sum way to achieve

our purposes.

The synergy view suggests three central tasks for theorists, researchers, and policy-

makers: to identify the nature and extent of a community's social relationships and

formal institutions, and the interaction between them; to develop institutional strat-

egies based on these social relations, particularly the extent of bonding and bridging

social capital; and to determine how the positive manifestations of social capital—

cooperation, trust, and institutional efficiency—can offset sectarianism, isolation-

ism, and corruption. Put another way, the challenge is to transform situations where

a community's social capital substitutes for weak, hostile, or indifferent formal insti-

tutions into ones in which both realms complement one another.

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 239

Table 2 summarizes the key elements of the four perspectives on social capital and

development and their corresponding policy prescriptions. The differences between

them are primarily the unit of analysis on which they focus; their treatment of social

capital as an independent, dependent, or mediating variable; and the extent to which

they incorporate a theory of the state. The largest and most influential bodies of

work have emerged from the networks and institutional perspectives; the most re-

cent approaches seek a synthesis.

Measuring Social Capital

Several recent innovative studies have attempted to quantify social capital and its

contribution to economic development. To arrive at concrete policy recommenda-

tions for using social capital as a development tool, more comparative research is

required that uses precise measures of social capital to examine within-country and

across-country variations in poverty reduction, government performance, ethnic con-

flict, and economic growth. Obtaining a single, true measure of social capital is prob-

ably not possible, for several reasons. First, the most comprehensive definitions of

social capital are multidimensional, incorporating different levels and units of analy-

sis. Second, the nature and forms of social capital change over time, as the balance

shifts between informal organizations and formal institutions. And third, because no

long-standing cross-country surveys were initially designed to measure social capital,

contemporary researchers have had to compile indexes from a range of approximate

items (measures of trust, confidence in government, voting trends, social mobility,

Table 2. Four Views of Social Capital

Perspective Actors Policy prescriptions

Communitarian view

Local associations Community groups Small is beautiful

Voluntary organizations Recognize social assets of the poor

Networks view

Bonding and bridging Entrepreneurs Decentralize

community ties Business groups Create enterprise zones

Information brokers Bridge social divides

Institutional view

Political and legal Private and public sectors Grant civil and political liberties

institutions Institute transparency, accountability

Synergy view

Community networks and Community groups, civil Coproduction, complementarity

state-society relations society, firms, states Participation, linkages

Enhance capacity and scale of

local organizations

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 240

and so on). Several excellent studies have identified useful measures of, and proxies

for, social capital, however.

One measure is membership in informal and formal associations and networks. In

developing countries generally, and in rural areas in particular, measures that capture

the informal give-and-take through communitywide festivals, sporting events, and

other traditional methods of fostering social connections are very important indica-

tors of the underlying stocks of social capital. Based on data from a survey of 1,400

households in 87 villages across Tanzania (Narayan 1997), Narayan and Pritchett

(1999) developed an index of social capital at the household and community levels

that included density and characteristics of informal and formal groups and net-

works. The dimensions of this index included group functioning, financial and in-

kind contributions to groups, participation in decisionmaking, and heterogeneity of

membership. A series of measures was also constructed on interpersonal trust and

changes over time. These measures demonstrated that social capital was indeed both

social and capital, generating returns that exceeded those to human capital.

In tandem with the Tanzania study, studies of local institutions in three coun-

tries— Bolivia (Grootaert and Narayan 2000), Burkina Faso (Grootaert, Oh, and

Swamy 1999), and Indonesia (Grootaert 1999)—looked at qualitative service deliv-

ery issues and quantified these variables. These studies demonstrated that the ques-

tionnaire items do in fact capture different dimensions of social capital at the house-

hold and community levels, that certain dimensions of social capital contribute

significantly to household welfare, and that social capital is the capital of the poor.

The most important variables in these studies are density of associations, heteroge-

neity of membership in associations, and degrees of active participation in them.

Another manifestation of social capital includes norms and values that facilitate

exchanges, lower transaction costs, reduce the cost of information, permit trade in

the absence of contracts, and encourage responsible citizenship and the collective

management of resources (Fukuyama 1995). Inglehart's (1997) work on the World

Values Survey is the most comprehensive effort in this area. The questions econo-

mists working on social capital find valuable are those on trust ("Generally speaking,

would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in

dealing with people?"). Knack and Keefer (1997), for example, use these data to

show the positive relationship between trust and levels of investment in a country.

Although research attempting to identify the nature of the relationships between

social variables and development has recently proliferated, the quality of the data is

less than ideal. With mounting pressure to provide simple measures of inherently

complex and interdependent relationships, there is a danger that expectations will

exceed capacity and that hastily assembled, poorly conceived measures will jeopar-

dize the agenda they purport to serve. One way to strike the balance between quality

and quantity measures is to unbundle social capital into its dimensions and to gener-

ate new data sets that are comparable across many countries.2

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 241

Four recent studies attempt to develop indices of social capital at the national or

subnational levels. In the United States several new surveys of civic engagement are

being conducted in addition to the work already collected in surveys of consumer

preferences and changes in lifestyles. The National Commission on Philanthropy

and Civic Renewal (1998), for example, has developed a National Index of Civic

Engagement based on a sample of 1,000 respondents. This index includes five di-

mensions: the giving climate, community engagement, charitable involvement, the

spirit of voluntarism, and active citizenship. Robert Putnam's Saguaro Seminar will

soon launch the Social Capital Community Benchmark, a comprehensive survey of

social capital in the United States (Putnam 2000).

In exploring the roots and determinants of Hindu and Muslim riots in India,

Varshney (2000) focuses on the role of intercommunal networks. In cities where

Hindus and Muslims have little interaction, Varshney shows that latent communal

conflict has few channels for peaceful resolution and periodically descends into vio-

lence; in cities where association memberships overlap and everyday interactions are

frequent, conflict is anticipated and dissipated. This research was based on six Indian

cities carefully arranged in three matched pairs that were similar in terms of Hindu-

Muslim demographic composition but dissimilar in that one city experienced recur-

rent riots whereas the other city remained calm. Varshney's work shows that diver-

sity can be a source of strength where social ties transcend different community

boundaries.

To assess social capital at the community level, Onyx and Bullen (forthcoming)

developed a questionnaire for the state of New South Wales, Australia, from which

they isolated eight underlying factors that constituted an individual's social capital:

participation in the local community, proaction in a social context, feelings of trust

and safety, neighborhood connections, connections with family and friends, toler-

ance of diversity, value of life, and work connections. Looking only at an individual's

social capital score, the authors could predict the community to which the person

belonged, thus raising the prospects for this instrument being used for planning and

monitoring community development activities.

Building on this work, researchers are working to develop social capital instru-

ments that can be used as diagnostic tools at the community level and across coun-

tries. Because the forms of social capital are society-specific and change over time,

the instruments must focus on a range of dimensions of social capital (Narayan and

Cassidy 1999). Such instruments have recently been introduced in Ghana and Uganda

(Narayan 1998) and by the World Bank's Social Capital Initiative in Panama and

India (Krishna and Shrader 1999).3 Analyses of the data reveal that the dimensions

underlying social capital are strikingly similar even when the context is quite differ-

ent. The Ghana study draws on a sample of 1,471 rural and urban households, while

the Uganda study focuses on 950 households in slum communities in Kampala.

Factor analyses reveal a similar underlying structure and clustering of variables.

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 242

Implications for Development Theory and Policy

The concept of social capital offers a way to bridge sociological and economic per-

spectives and to provide potentially richer and better explanations of economic de-

velopment. One important way it does this is by showing that the nature and extent

of social interactions between communities and institutions shape economic perfor-

mance. This, in turn, has important implications for development policy, which has

long focused exclusively on an economic dimension. Similarly, understanding how

outside agencies can work to alleviate poverty in diverse and poorly understood com-

munities remains one of the great challenges of development. A social capital per-

spective stresses that technical and financial soundness is a necessary but insufficient

condition for acceptance of a project by poor communities.

Six broad recommendations can be offered for incorporating the concept of social

capital into development policy. First, for development interventions in all sectors

and at all levels (especially the country level), social institutional analysis should be

used to identify correctly the range of stakeholders and their interrelations. Under-

standing how proposed policy interventions will affect the power and political inter-

ests of the stakeholders is a vital consideration, since all policy interventions occur in

a social context characterized by a delicate mix of informal organizations, networks,

and institutions. The design of an intervention needs to pay special attention to the

potential for dominant groups to mobilize in ways that undermine the public good.

Second, it is critical to invest in the organizational capacity of the poor and to help

build bridges between communities and social groups. The latter is particularly im-

portant because many decisions affecting the poor are not made at the local level. To

this end, the use of participatory processes can facilitate consensus-building and so-

cial interaction among stakeholders with diverse interests and resources. Finding

ways and means by which to transcend social divides and build social cohesion and

trust is crucial for economic development. One of the great virtues of the idea and

discourse on social capital is that it provides a common language for these different

stakeholders, enabling them to communicate more easily with one another.

Third, a social capital perspective adds its voice to those calling for information

disclosure policies at all levels to encourage informed citizenship and accountability

of both private and public actors who purport to serve the public good. Fourth,

improvements in physical access and modern communications technology that can

foster information exchange across social groups should be emphasized to comple-

ment social interaction based on face-to-face interchange. Fifth, development inter-

ventions should be viewed through a social capital lens, and assessments of their im-

pact should include the potential effects of the intervention on the social capital of

poor communities. To reiterate, the social networks of the poor are one of the primary

resources they have for managing risk and vulnerability, and outside agents therefore

need to find ways to complement these resources, rather than substitute for them.

Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan 243

Finally, social capital should be seen as a component of orthodox development

projects, from dams and irrigation systems to local schools and health clinics. Where

poor communities have direct input into the design, implementation, management,

and evaluation of projects, returns on investments and the sustainability of the project

are enhanced (Esman and Uphoff 1984).

Conclusion

Although it is too soon to announce the arrival of a new development paradigm, it is

not unreasonable to claim that a consensus is emerging about the importance of

social relations in development. In unpacking the literature on social capital and

development, a recurring message is that social relations provide opportunities for

mobilizing other growth-enhancing resources, that social capital does not exist in a

political vacuum, and that the nature and extent of the interactions between com-

munities and institutions hold the key to understanding the prospects for develop-

ment in a given society. The evidence supports the argument that social capital can

be used to promote or to undermine the public good. This consideration suggests

that one of the most important examples of social capital at work in the absence of

formal insurance mechanisms and financial instruments is the use by the poor of

social connections to protect themselves against risk and vulnerability.

In many respects the research on social capital is still in its early stages, but practi-

tioners and policymakers cannot wait for researchers to know all there is to know

before acting. Instead, all those involved should adopt a stance of learning by doing.

This implies more rigorous evaluations of project and policy impact on social capi-

tal, more work on unbundling the mechanisms through which social capital works,

and understanding the determinants of social capital itself. It also implies that prac-

tical lessons emerging from development projects can themselves be used to inform

social capital theory.

It would be the ultimate irony if those people most interested in studying social

capital and promoting its use in formulating development policy did not themselves

foster trust, openness, and a willingness to share information, ideas, and opportuni-

ties in this field. Readers are invited to access, use, and contribute to the ongoing

research on social capital.4 It is only through collaborative efforts—with all that this

entails regarding struggle, perseverance, negotiation, and mutual willingness to learn—

that genuine progress will be made.

Notes

Michael Woolcock is a social scientist with the World Bank's Development Research Group and an

adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard University. Deepa Narayan is a lead social development

The World Bank Research Observer, vol. 15, no. 2 (August 2000) 244

specialist in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network at the World Bank. For

helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, the authors thank John Blaxall, Jonathan Fox,

Christiaan Grootaert, Bill Mulford, Vijayendra Rao, Anders Rudkvist, and anonymous reviewers.

1. For citations on the first eight fields, see Woolcock (1998) and Foley and Edwards (1999). See

also the database of articles on the World Bank's social capital Website, at <http://www.worldbank.org/

poverty/scapital/library/index.htm#db>.

2. A number of recent survey instruments are available to researchers doing work in this field. See

the World Bank's social capital Website, <http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/library/

surveys.htm>.

3. The World Bank's Social Capital Initiative is a $1.2 million dollar project sponsored by the

government of Denmark. Several monographs produced for the initiative have been cited in this

paper; these and several others can be downloaded at <http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital/

wkrppr/wrkppr.htm>. These papers are currently being edited and prepared for formal publication.

4. The World Bank's Social Capital Thematic Group Website contains instructions on how to

receive our newsletter and join the e-mail discussion group. Go to <http://www.worldbank.org/pov-

erty/scapital/>.

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... Social capital refers to the capacity of people to build a social network and engage in interpersonal activities (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004;Muffels & Headey, 2013). Under the network approach of social capital (see Woolcock & Narayan, 2000), two dimensions are considered: bonding and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital refers to closed networks, strong ties or horizontal associations (within). ...

... Within the concept of universalism, as pointed out by Schwartz and Sortheix (2018), values such as supporting immigration could be considered. Unlike social capital, which refers to the capacity of people to build a social network and engage in activities with people to whom they relate (closer people such as family members or more distant ones such as co-workers) (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004;Muffels & Headey, 2013;Woolcock & Narayan, 2000), Mistrust refers to the positioning of a person with respect to people or society in general and not with respect to known people (in the same vein, see Rözer & Kraaykamp, 2013;Navarro & Sánchez, 2018). Such positioning partially reflects people's cultural norms and economic situation (Brdar et al., 2009;Chebotareva, 2015). ...

This article analyzes the main determinants of changes in subjective well-being over time in Germany distinguishing between long-term and short-term changes. Our findings for the long term indicate that social capital and values and cultural dimensions have the greatest capacity to predict changes in subjective well-being. Likewise, the correlation between economic resources and subjective well-being is weaker due to the small increase registered in household income and because people compare their income with those who are better off and feel envy. In the short term, economic resources have the highest capacity to predict both improvements (ups) and declines (downs) in subjective well-being. Finally, we also suggest that, whenever information is available, personality traits should be taken into account in the analysis of changes in subjective well-being over time in order to achieve more reliable estimates.

... Previous research [10,33] has indicated that neighbourhood social capital is a stable construct that does not change dramatically over time. Based on this assumption, we assigned the same scores for neighbourhood social capital over 2006-2013 (based on the 2006 survey results) and 2014-2017 (based on the 2020 survey results). ...

... Further, our results support previous research suggesting that social capital is a relatively stable characteristic in local areas that does not fluctuate too much over time, at least not in a relatively stable society [10,33,42]. Almost half of the 46 neighbourhoods retained their same social capital rank over 14 years, while 9 neighbourhoods increased in social capital rank, and 15 neighbourhoods decreased in social capital rank. ...

The development of social capital is acknowledged as key for sustainable social development. Little is known about how social capital changes over time and how it correlates with sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. This study was conducted in 46 neighbourhoods in Umeå Municipality, northern Sweden. The aim was to examine neighbourhood-level characteristics associated with changes in neighbourhood social capital and to discuss implications for local policies for sustainable social development. We designed an ecological study linking survey data to registry data in 2006 and 2020. Over 14 years, social capital increased in 9 and decreased in 15 neighbourhoods. Higher levels of social capital were associated with specific sociodemographic factors, but these differed in urban and rural areas. Urban neighbourhoods with a higher proportion of older pensioners (OR = 1.49, CI: 1.16–1.92), children under 12 (OR= 2.13, CI: 1.31–3.47), or a lower proportion of foreign-born members (OR= 0.32, CI: 0.19–0.55) had higher odds for higher social capital levels. In rural neighbourhoods, a higher proportion of single-parent households was associated with higher levels of social capital (OR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.04–1.98). Neighbourhood socioeconomic factors such as income or educational level did not influence neighbourhood social capital. Using repeated measures of social capital, this study gives insights into how social capital changes over time in local areas and the factors influencing its development. Local policies to promote social capital for sustainable social development should strive to integrate diverse demographic groups within neighbourhoods and should increase opportunities for inter-ethnic interactions.

... Social capital may still be available during and after the shock, but it is available in a different form-for instance, its use is highly restricted due to travel limitations and social distancing policies. As an example, we may look to the function of social ties in terms of bridging (and linking) and bonding social capital [43]. Bridging and linking social capital connects individuals across some divides (e.g., across academic disciplines, across countries), and could be associated with novelty and development. ...

... weak ties vs. strong ties; [52,53]). Or how can distant acquaintances become important partners that also provide emotional support ("strong ties", or also see bonding capital; [43]) through digital means only? This topic has received little attention and puts into question the path to social capital accumulation suggested by pre-COVID data. ...

• Dominik Emanuel Froehlich

The COVID-19 pandemic was a career shock for many, including early and mid-career researchers. Due to the (digital) transformation it has caused in the social domain, it may have lastingly changed the rules for career development. In this conceptual paper, we investigate how the changed social environment created gaps in our understanding of academic career development and the role social capital plays in it. Our narrative review of the literature arrives at three major gaps: two are related to the nature, antecedents, and outcomes of (career-related) social capital, and one is related to the methodological backdrop of how knowledge is being generated in this domain. Based on the identified gaps, we specify avenues for further (and much needed) research.

... The early works of Putnam used the single term of 'social capital' to explain the issues of society ranging from informal networks to norms of organizations. The limitation of the approach was highlighted by several scholars (Woolcock,1998;Portes,1998;Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Subsequently Putnam (2000) recognized two main types of social capital; the bonding social capital and bridging social capital. ...

... Furthermore, high level of social solidarity does not guarantee economic development. The examples from underdeveloped world such as Kenya, Hati, Ruwanda and Latin American countries confirm the argument that the high level of local bonding has failed to raise the living conditions of marginalized (Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). Portes (1998) presents a comprehensive analysis on the different types of negative impacts of the social capital. ...

... The former is typically associated with homogenous network ties between social actors from the same or similar social groups, while the latter is linked to heterogeneous network ties between people from different groups (e.g. Coffé and Geys, 2007;Ellison et al., 2014;Kanas et al., 2009;Lee, 2020;Putnam, 2000;Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). While bonding capital tends to be focused on the 'needs and interests of group members themselves' (Wuthnow, 2002: 670), bridging capital has been linked more often to the development of civic responsibility. ...

• Jared Bok

A religious organization's choice of activities is shaped not only by theological goals but also the capital available to it. Prior research has shown how economic and religious capital influence Protestant missionary organizations' repertoires of activism but has largely ignored the role of social capital. Using the most recent data on transnational American Protestant mission agencies, this study aims to fill this gap. Using a Bourdieuian field approach and multiple correspondence analysis, the study finds that linking and bonding social capital both shape whether an agency generalizes rather than specializes in specific ministry activities. Both bonding and bridging social capital, in turn, prompt a more other-worldly than this-worldly ministry orientation, but this is a pattern most characteristic of Evangelical agencies, suggesting an intersection between religious identity and organizational network size. The study concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for interorganizational collaboration and resource use. Résumé Le choix des activités d'une organisation religieuse est déterminé non seulement par ses objectifs théologiques, mais aussi par les capitaux dont elle dispose. Des recherches antérieures ont montré la manière dont le capital économique et religieux influence

... For social capital, we draw on a broad literature that takes two distinct perspectives: a structural perspective and a network perspective. Both approaches have employed a large number of indicators as proxies [24][25][26] , and both perspectives permit identification of proxies for social capital at the individual and collective levels. Following numerous influential papers 7,27,28 , we focus on individual-level indicators of social capital in our empirical analysis. ...

Human and social capital help households cope with disastrous shocks. We analyse panel survey data from before and after the 2015 Nepal earthquakes to disentangle the association between post-earthquake income recovery of households and their social and human capital before the earthquake. Our analysis uses multidimensional measures of human and social capital and a machine-learning algorithm, the Bayesian additive regression tree. This approach helps us address measurement and estimation challenges that commonly affect social science analyses of observational data with many covariates and confounding variables. Our analysis shows the relative association of human capital with income recovery is greater on average than that of social capital, human and social capital serve as partial substitutes for each other when it comes to household income recovery, and the association of different capitals with economic recovery is nonlinear and heterogeneous across household education levels. Our results suggest that disaster-support policies can be structured with respect to human and social capital endowments to support more effective recovery of disaster-affected households.

Most disasters are attributed to natural phenomena, but in many cases, they actually occur or are worsened because of mismanagement and/or the inappropriate implementation of development policy. Unsustainable development practices, ecosystem destruction, extreme poverty, and climate change have led to an increase in the frequency and consequences of disasters, whether primarily natural or human-caused. With a paradigm shift from disaster 'government' to disaster 'governance,' the complex problems of both pre- and post-disaster situations should be anticipated and managed in an integrated manner.

• Geoffrey Habron

Asheville, North Carolina, launched a Climate Resilience Assessment in conjunction with a new Comprehensive Plan in 2017. While initiated separately, the efforts eventually melded together as the Climate Resilience Assessment folded into the Comprehensive Plan as an appendix. In 2019, Asheville developed the first action step in terms of an outreach plan targeted at individual homeowners and neighborhoods. The approach began in a way that places the burden of the risk response on individuals instead of society. The response neglects the causal mechanisms in terms of structural and cultural issues that have led to risks and to certain groups and locations becoming more vulnerable than others. Why is it that some houses are dilapidated and vulnerable to flooding or that some people rely on public transportation or food assistance? In not accounting for cultural and structural factors, climate response efforts fail to address resilience and instead simply constitute an approach to adaptation. True resilience would address the causes of vulnerability and build adaptive capacity that has individual and societal/community dimensions and focuses on building financial, knowledge, and most importantly social capital. However, building and summing individual capital does not equate to building community social capital or community adaptive capacity, especially since individuals do not drive or cause climate threats, thus illustrating a scale mismatch. Therefore, there is a need to incorporate best practices in risk and resilience theory and practice.

Women entrepreneurs are emerging as key economic players in developing counties. Many things are considered obstacles in the path of emerging players' development as entrepreneurs, with access to bank credit being one of the most significant in developing countries. Basel III regulations have been implemented across the globe in the recent past by every country, hence, the country-specific effects can be neglected in terms of the policies regarding credit initiations. In the South Asian context almost half of the population is comprised of women, who are usually not initiating or taking part in businesses due to the socio-cultural perspective. However, due to the rapid transition of the economy in Pakistan and an increase in the literacy rate, women start playing their role in the betterment of the economy. In lieu of that, this qualitative research has examined the factors which can influence women's access to bank credit from lenders' perspective in Lahore (One of the major cities in Pakistan). In this regard, primary data has been gathered using face-to-face in-depth semi-structured interviews supported by an ethnographic strategy for recording real-time observations. The theoretical Sampling technique has been used for data collection from commercial banking managers. Grounded theory analysis was performed by using NVIVO 12.0 software over qualitative data which revealed that factors ranging from the Perception of Businesswomen to Sound Business Knowledge, Financial Awareness, Management Capabilities, Networking, Familial and Community Moral support, Business Constitution and Industry Sector, Firm Age and Size, and Adequate Collateral influence the dynamics of access to bank credit to women entrepreneurs. The study offers policy implications for banking sector related Policy managers, Women Entrepreneurs, and Government-run programs. Introduction: Women entrepreneurs are a rapidly growing segment that contributing to economic activities according to available resources. In 2016, approximately 163 million women were establishing or handling new ventures in 74 economies all over the world as reported in the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneur (MIWE, 2018). In South Asian countries almost half of the population is comprised of females. For example, the total population of Afghanistan is 37.172M having male 51% and female 49%. In Bangladesh total population is 161.377M having male 51% and female 49%. In Bhutan, the total population is 0.754M having male 53% and female 47%. In India, the total population is 1,352.642M having male 51% and female 49%. In the Maldives, the total population is 0.516M having male 63% and female 37%. In Nepal, the total population is 28.096M having male 45% and female 55%. In Pakistan, the total population is 212.228M having male 51% and female 49%. In Sri Lanka, the total population is 21.229M having male 48% and female 52% (Worldpopulationreview.com, 2019). In Pakistan, SMEs' participation in GDP is up to 40% annually but it is lesser to the neighboring countries. The share of SMEs of India and China in GDP is greater than 40% and 60% respectively (Zafar and Mustafa, 2017).

Due to the different schools of thought, studying the consumption behavior of the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) has become a potential research topic. This study aims to explore the attitude of BoPs towards packaging influenced purchase (PIP) decision. The packaging, sometimes called the 5th P of the marketing mix, plays a crucial part in the consumer behavior domain. The study is supposed to have significant managerial implications as it accounts for both urban and rural BoP consumers to capture their attitudes towards PIP. A state of India (i.e., West Bengal) selected for this study, successfully addresses the present research gap in the BoP domain. Opinion mining has been selected as a machine-learning-based technique to gain insight into the qualitative data collected from 100 BoP consumers. To validate the result, aspect-based sentiment analysis has been implemented. This study has successfully revealed BoP consumers' attitude regarding making PIP-related decisions along with many other facts like "who makes PIP decisions", "who influences PIP-related decisions", "which packaging attribute(s) mostly influence(s) PIP-related decisions" and so on. The comparative study between urban and rural BoP consumers reveals some interesting guidelines for the marketers.

This article investigates some of the ways in which social capital made available in an immigrant community contributes to, rather than hinders, the adaptation of the younger generation, in school and afterward. We contrast the assimilationist view with alternative arguments on ethnic resources as social capital. Based on a case study of Vietnamese youth in an immigrant community in eastern New Orleans, we explore how aspects of an immigrant culture serve as a form of social capital to affect the adaptational experiences of immigrant offspring. We have found that students who have strong adherence to traditional family values, strong commitment to a work ethic, and a high degree of personal involvement in the ethnic community tend disproportionately to receive high grades, to have definite college plans, and to score high on academic orientation. These values and tenavioral and associational patterns are consistent with the expectations of their community and reflect a high level of social integration among Vietnamese youth. The findings indicate that strong positive immigrant cultural orientations can serve as a form of social capital that promotes value conformity and constructive forms of behavior, which provide otherwise disadvantaged children with an adaptive advantage. We conclude that social capital is crucial and, under certain conditions, more important than traditional human capital for the successful adaptation of younger-generation immigrants.

• Caroline Moser

The study analyzed four urban communities in four very different regions: Chawama, in Lusaka, Zambia; Cisne Dos, in Guayaquil, Ecuador; Commonwealth, in Metro Manila, the Philippines; and Angyalfold, in Budapest, Hungary. Although these four case studies revealed interesting contrasts, they also showed important similarities. The findings show that a community's ability to cope with the stress of economic difficulties, is largely affected by its material well-being, as expected. But they also show that a community's coping ability is influenced by its social capital - the trust, reciprocal arrangements, and social networks linking people in the community. Not surprisingly, the study's findings bring out the role of women in vivid relief. Their networks are therefore extremely important as a defense against increased vulnerability and as a basis for action to overcome the conditions of extreme poverty.

Green and Haines Definition of Social Capita

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5217916_Social_Capital_Implications_for_Development_Theory_Research_and_Policy

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