Social Capital

Social capital is a concept used in sociology and economics to define networks of relationships which are productive towards advancing the goals of individuals and groups.
It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity. Some have described it as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common purpose, although this does not align with how it has been measured.

Social capital has been used to explain the improved performance of diverse groups, the growth of entrepreneurial firms, superior managerial performance, enhanced supply chain relations, the value derived from strategic alliances, and the evolution of communities.

History

While it has been suggested that the term ''social capital'' was in intermittent use from about 1890, before becoming widely used in the late 1990s, the earliest credited use is by Lyda Hanifan in 1916 (see 20th century below).

The debate of community versus modernization of society and individualism has been the most discussed topic among the founders of sociology: such theorists as Tönnies (1887),Tonnies, F. (1955) 887 ''Community and Association''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Durkheim (1893), Simmel (1905), Weber (1946)Weber, M. (1946) "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism". In Hans H. Gert and Mills C. Wright (eds) ''From Max Weber''. New York: Oxford University Press. were convinced that industrialisation and urbanization were transforming social relationships in an irreversible way. They observed a breakdown of traditional bonds and the progressive development of anomie and alienation in society.Wilmott, P. 1986. ''Social Networks, Informal Care and Public Policy''. London: Policy Studies Institute.

18th–19th century

The power of '' community governance'' has been stressed by many philosophers from antiquity to the 18th century, from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas, and Edmund Burke. This vision was strongly criticised at the end of the 18th century, with the development of the idea of ''Homo Economicus'' and subsequently with ''rational choice theory''. Such a set of theories became dominant in the last centuries, but many thinkers questioned the complicated relationship between ''modern society'' and the importance of ''old institutions'', in particular family and traditional communities.

The concept that underlies social capital has a much longer history; thinkers exploring the relation between associational life and democracy were using similar concepts regularly by the 19th century, drawing on the work of earlier writers such as James Madison (''The Federalist Papers'') and Alexis de Tocqueville (''Democracy in America'') to integrate concepts of social cohesion and connectedness into the pluralist tradition in American political science. John Dewey may have made the first direct mainstream use of ''social capital'' in '' The School and Society'' in 1899, though he did not offer a definition.

In the first half of the 19th century, de Tocqueville had observations about American life that seemed to outline and define social capital. He observed that Americans were prone to meeting at as many gatherings as possible to discuss all possible issues of state, economics, or the world that could be witnessed. The high levels of transparency caused greater participation from the people and thus allowed for democracy to work better.

20th century

L. J. Hanifan's 1916 article regarding local support for rural schools is one of the first occurrences of the term ''social capital'' in reference to social cohesion and personal investment in the community. Hanifan, L. J. 1916. "The rural school community center." ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 67:130–138. In defining the concept, Hanifan contrasts social capital with material goods by defining it as:

I do not refer to real estate, or to personal property or to cold cash, but rather to that in life which tends to make these tangible substances count for most in the daily lives of people, namely, goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families who make up a social unit.… If he may come into contact with his neighbour, and they with other neighbours, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. The community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbours.

Following the works of Tönnies (1887) and Weber (1946), reflection on social links in modern society continued with interesting contributions in the 1950s and in the 1960s. In particular, '' mass society theory''as developed by Daniel Bell (1962), Robert Nisbet (1969), Maurice R. Stein (1960), William H. Whyte (1956)proposed themes similar to those of the founders, with a more pessimistic emphasis on the development of society. In the words of Stein (1960:1): "The price for maintaining a society that encourages cultural differentiation and experimentation is unquestionably the acceptance of a certain amount of disorganization on both the individual and social level."

Jane Jacobs used the term early in the 1960s. Although she did not explicitly define the term ''social capital'', her usage referred to the value of networks. Political scientist Robert Salisbury advanced the term as a critical component of interest group formation in his 1969 article "An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups" in the '' Midwest Journal of Political Science''.

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu used the term in 1972 in his ''Outline of a Theory of Practice'',Bourdieu, Pierre. (1972) ''Outline of a Theory of Practice'' and clarified the term some years later in contrast to cultural, economic, administrative capital, physical capital, political capital, social capital and symbolic capital. Sociologists James Coleman (1988), as well as Barry Wellman & Scot Wortley (1990), adopted Glenn Loury's 1977 definition in developing and popularising the concept. In the late 1990s, the concept gained popularity, serving as the focus of a World Bank research programme and the subject of several mainstream books, including Robert Putnam's ''Bowling Alone'', Putnam, Robert. 2000. '' Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community''. Simon & Schuster. and Putnam & Lewis Feldstein's '' Better Together''.

All of these reflections contributed remarkably to the development of the social capital concept in the following decades. The appearance of the modern social capital conceptualization is a new way to look at this debate, keeping together the importance of community to build generalized trust and the same time, the importance of individual free choice, in order to create a more cohesive society. It is for this reason that social capital generated so much interest in the academic and political world.

Definitions and forms

Social capital has multiple definitions, interpretations, and uses. David Halpern argues that the popularity of social capital for policymakers is linked to the concept's duality, coming because "it has a hard nosed economic feel while restating the importance of the social." For researchers, the term is popular partly due to the broad range of outcomes it can explain; the multiplicity of uses for social capital has led to a multiplicity of definitions.

Social capital has been used at various times to explain superior managerial performance, the growth of entrepreneurial firms, improved performance of functionally diverse groups, the value derived from strategic alliances, and enhanced supply-chain relations. "A resource that actors derive from specific social structures and then use to pursue their interests; it is created by changes in the relationship among actors" (Baker 1990, p. 619).

Early attempts to define social capital focused on the degree to which social capital serves as a resource – be it for public good or private benefit. Robert D. Putnam (1993) suggested that social capital would facilitate co-operation and mutually supportive relations in communities and nations and would therefore be a valuable means of combating many of the social disorders inherent in modern societies, for example crime. In contrast, others focus on the private benefits derived from the web of social relationships in which individual actors find themselves. This is reflected in Nan Lin's concept of social capital as "Investment in social relations with expected returns in the marketplace." This may subsume the concepts of some others such as Bourdieu, Flap and Eriksson. Newton (1997) treats social capital as a subjective phenomenon formed by values and attitudes that influence interactions. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998), in their examination of the role of social capital in the creation of intellectual capital, suggest that social capital should be considered in terms of three clusters: structural, relational, and cognitive.

Definitional issues

A number of scholars have raised concerns about the imprecision in defining social capital. Portes (2000), for example, notes that the term has become so widely used, including in mainstream media, that "the point is approaching at which social capital comes to be applied to so many events and in so many different contexts as to lose any distinct meaning." The term '' capital'' is used by analogy with other forms of economic capital, as social capital is argued to have similar (although less measurable) benefits. However, the analogy may be misleading in that, unlike financial forms of capital, social capital is not depleted by use; instead, it is depleted by non-use (''use it or lose it''). In this respect, it is similar to the economic concept of human capital.

Robison, Schmid, and Siles (2002) review various definitions of social capital and conclude that many do not satisfy the formal requirements of a definition. They assert that definitions must be of the form A=B, while many explanations of social capital describe what it can be used to achieve, where it resides, how it can be created, or what it can transform. In addition, they argue that many proposed definitions of social capital fail to satisfy the requirements of capital. They propose that social capital be defined as ''sympathy'': the object of another's sympathy has social capital; those who have sympathy for others provide social capital. This proposition appears to follow Adam Smith, ''Theory of Moral Sentiments'' to some degree, but Smith's conceptualization of sympathy (particularly in the first two chapters of this work) appear more concerned with the roles of acceptance or congruence – in ethics or virtue – in evaluating an individual's 'propriety of action'.

''Social capital'' is different from the economic theory of social capitalism, which challenges the idea that socialism and capitalism are mutually exclusive.

Forms of capital (Bourdieu)

In ''The Forms of Capital'', Pierre Bourdieu distinguishes between three forms of capital: economic capital, cultural capital and social capital. He defines ''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."Bourdieu, Pierre. (1983). "Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital" in Soziale Ungleichheiten (Soziale Welt, Sonderheft 2), edited by Reinhard Kreckel. Goettingen: Otto Schartz & Co. pp. 249 His treatment of the concept is instrumental, focusing on the advantages to possessors of social capital and the ''"deliberate construction of sociability for the purpose of creating this resource''." Quite contrary to Putnam's positive view of social capital, Bourdieu employs the concept to demonstrate a mechanism for the generational reproduction of inequality. Bourdieu thus points out that the wealthy and powerful use their "old boys network" or other social capital to maintain advantages for themselves, their social class, and their children.

Norms of trust and reciprocity (Sander, Putnam, Coleman)

Thomas Sander defines it as "the collective value of all social networks (who people know), and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other ( norms of reciprocity)." Social capital, in this view, emphasizes "specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks." It "creates value for the people who are connected, and for bystanders as well." Meanwhile, negative norms of reciprocity serve as disincentives for detrimental and violent behaviors.

James Coleman defined social capital functionally as "a variety of entities with two elements in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of actors...within the structure"that is, social capital is anything that facilitates individual or collective action, generated by networks of relationships, reciprocity, trust, and social norms. In Coleman's conception, social capital is a neutral resource that facilitates any manner of action, but whether society is better off as a result depends entirely on the individual uses to which it is put.Foley, M. W. & Edwards, B. (1997). ''Escape from politics?''

According to Robert D. Putnam, ''social capital'' refers to "connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them." In the view of Putnam and his followers, social capital is a key component to building and maintaining democracy. Putnam says that social capital is declining in the United States. This is seen in lower levels of trust in government and lower levels of civic participation. Putnam also suggests that a root cause of the decline in social capital is women's entry into the workforce, which could correlate with time restraints that inhibit civic organizational involvement like parent-teacher associations. Technological transformation of leisure (e.g., television) is another cause of declining social capital, as stated by Putnam. This offered a reference point from which several studies assessed social capital measurements by how media is engaged strategically to build social capital.

Civic association (Fukuyama)

In "Social Capital, Civil Society, and Development", political economist Francis Fukuyama defines social capital as generally understood rules that enable people to cooperate such as the norm of reciprocity or religious doctrine like Christianity. Social capital is formed by repeated interactions over time and, he argues, is critical for development and difficult to generate through public policy. The importance of social capital for economic development is that these norms of behavior reduce transaction cost of exchange such as legal contracts and government regulations. Fukuyama suggests that while social capital is beneficial for development, it also imposes cost on non-group members with unintended consequences for general welfare.

Referencing Alexis de Tocqueville in ''Democracy in America,'' and what he described as the art of association of the American propensity for civil association, Fukuyama argues social capital is what produces a civil society." Therefore, while social capital can facilitate economic development by reducing transaction cost and increasing productivity, social capital can also distort democracy if civic association enables special interest to gain special favors. However, Fukuyama argues despite the risk of society having too much social capital, it is nonetheless worse to have too little and be unable to organize for public goods and welfare enhancing activity.

Social ties

Carlos García Timón describes that the structural dimensions of social capital relate to an individual ability to make weak and strong ties to others within a system. This dimension focuses on the advantages derived from the configuration of an actor's, either individual or collective, network. The differences between ''weak'' and ''strong'' ties are explained by Granovetter (1973). Bridging social capital refers to the weak ties that individuals with heterogeneous limited interactions form. Bridging social capital is more likely to provide valuable new information (Moshkovitz and Hayat, 2021). Some others describes the weak and strong ties relationship as bonding and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital refers to strong ties: the intimate relationships people feel close to and trust. The relational dimension focuses on the character of the connection between individuals. This is best characterized through trust of others and their cooperation and the identification an individual has within a network. Hazleton and Kennan (2000) added a third angle, that of communication. Communication is needed to access and use social capital through exchanging information, identifying problems and solutions, and managing conflict.

According to Boisot (1995), and Boland & Tenkasi (1995), meaningful communication requires at least some sharing context between the parties to such exchange. The cognitive dimension focuses on the shared meaning, representations and interpretations that individuals or groups have with one another.

Negative social capital

Whereas some scholars, most prominently Robert D. Putnam, posit that social capital has positive ends, a sizable body of literature finds that social capital can have adverse effects. Research by Sheri Berman and Dylan Riley, as well as economists Shanker Satyanath, Nico Voigtländer, and Hans-Joachim Voth, have linked civic associations to the rise of fascist movements. Pierre Bourdieu's work tends to show how social capital can be used practically to produce or reproduce inequality, demonstrating for instance how people gain access to powerful positions through the direct and indirect employment of social connections.

An example of the complexities of the effects of negative social capital is violence or criminal gang activity that is encouraged through the strengthening of intra-group relationships (bonding social capital). The negative consequences of social capital are more often associated with ''bonding'' vis-à-vis ''bridging''.

Without "bridging" social capital, "bonding" groups can become isolated and disenfranchised from the rest of society and, most importantly, from groups with which bridging must occur in order to denote an "increase" in social capital. Bonding social capital is a necessary antecedent for the development of the more powerful form of bridging social capital. Bonding and bridging social capital can work together productively if in balance, or they may work against each other. As social capital bonds and stronger homogeneous groups form, the likelihood of bridging social capital is attenuated. Bonding social capital can also perpetuate sentiments of a certain group, allowing for the bonding of certain individuals together upon a common radical ideal. The strengthening of insular ties can lead to a variety of effects such as ethnic marginalization or social isolation. In extreme cases ethnic cleansing may result if the relationship between different groups is so strongly negative. In mild cases, it isolates certain communities such as suburbs of cities because of the bonding social capital and the fact that people in these communities spend so much time away from places that build bridging social capital.

Accessibility

Edwards and Foley, as editors of a special edition of the ''American Behavioral Scientist'' on "Social Capital, Civil Society and Contemporary Democracy", raised two key issues in the study of social capital. First, social capital is not equally available to all, in much the same way that other forms of capital are differently available. Geographic and social isolation limit access to this resource. Second, not all social capital is created equally. The value of a specific source of social capital depends in no small part on the socio-economic position of the source with society.

On top of this, Portes (1998) has identified four negative consequences of social capital:

# exclusion of outsiders;
# excess claims on group members;
# restrictions on individual freedom; and
# downward levelling norms.

In political institutions

Social capital (in the institutional Robert Putnam sense) may also lead to bad outcomes if the political institution and democracy in a specific country is not strong enough and is therefore overpowered by the social capital groups. "Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar Republic" suggests that "it was weak political institutionalization rather than a weak civil society that was Germany's main problem during the Wihelmine and Weimar eras." Because the political institutions were so weak people looked to other outlets. "Germans threw themselves into their clubs, voluntary associations, and professional organizations out of frustration with the failures of the national government and political parties, thereby helping to undermine the Weimar Republic and facilitate Hitler's rise to power." In this article about the fall of the Weimar Republic, the author makes the claim that Hitler rose to power so quickly because he was able to mobilize the groups towards one common goal. Even though German society was, at the time, a "joining" society these groups were fragmented and their members did not use the skills they learned in their club associations to better their society, but to encourage their values across all cultures to provide a better society for people. They were very introverted in the Weimar Republic. Hitler was able to capitalize on this by uniting these highly bonded groups under the common cause of bringing Germany to the top of world politics. The former world order had been destroyed during World War I, and Hitler believed that Germany had the right and the will to become a dominant global power.

Additionally, in his essay "A Criticism of Putnam's Theory of Social Capital", Michael Shindler expands upon Berman's argument that Weimar social clubs and similar associations in countries that did not develop democracy, were organized in such a way that they fostered a "we" instead of an "I" mentality among their members, by arguing that groups which possess cultures that stress solidarity over individuality, even ones that are "horizontally" structured and which were also common to pre-Soviet Eastern Europe, will not engender democracy if they are politically aligned with non-democratic ideologies.

In race and ethnicity

Using a network-based conception for characterizing the social capital of collectivities (such as organizations or business clusters), Lester, Maheshwari, and McLain (2013) note that negative social capital may be the cause for disadvantageous differences among minority firms versus majority firms. While studying norms among African-American family firms and Euro-American family firms, Lester et al. noted that negative social capital was created when the owner of the company was pressured to engage in social behavior not conducive to firm profits.

Robert Putnam, in his later work, also suggests that social capital, and the associated growth of public trust are inhibited by immigration and rising racial diversity in communities. Putnam's study regarding the issue argued that in American areas with a lack of homogeneity, some individuals neither participated in bonding nor bridging social capital. In societies where immigration is high (US) or where ethnic heterogeneity is high (Eastern Europe), it was found that citizens lacked in both kinds of social capital and were overall far less trusting of others than members of homogenous communities were found to be. Lack of homogeneity led to people withdrawing from even their closest groups and relationships, creating an atomized society as opposed to a cohesive community. These findings challenge previous beliefs that exposure to diversity strengthens social capital, either through bridging social gaps between ethnicities or strengthening in-group bonds. It is very important for policy makers to monitor the level of perceived socio-economic threat from immigrants because negative attitudes towards immigrants make integration difficult and affect social capital.

Varshney (2001) studied the correlation between the presence of interethnic networks (''bridging'') versus intra-ethnic ones (''bonding'') on ethnic violence in India.
He argues that interethnic networks are agents of peace because they build bridges and manage tensions, by noting that if communities are organized only along intra-ethnic lines and the interconnections with other communities are very weak or even nonexistent, then ethnic violence is quite likely.
Three main implications of intercommunal ties explain their worth:
# Facilitate communication in the community across ethnic lines
# Squelch false rumors
# Help the administration carry out its job and in particular peace, security and justice

This is a useful distinction; nevertheless, its implication on social capital can only be accepted if one espouses the functionalist understanding of the latter concept. Indeed, it can be argued that interethnic, as well as intra-ethnic networks can serve various purposes, either increasing or diminishing social capital. In fact, Varshney himself notes that intra-ethnic policing (equivalent to the " self-policing" mechanism proposed by Fearon and Laitin, 1996) may lead to the same result as interethnic engagement.

Social inequality

James Coleman (1988) has indicated that social capital eventually led to the creation of human capital for the future generation. Human capital, a private resource, could be accessed through what the previous generation accumulated through social capital. John Field (2003) suggested that such a process could lead to the very inequality social capital attempts to resolve. While Coleman viewed social capital as a relatively neutral resource, he did not deny the class reproduction that could result from accessing such capital, given that individuals worked toward their own benefit.

Even though Coleman never truly addresses Pierre Bourdieu in his discussion, this coincides with Bourdieu's argument set forth in ''Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture''. Bourdieu and Coleman were fundamentally different at the theoretical level (as Bourdieu believed the actions of individuals were rarely ever conscious, but more so only a result of their '' habitus'' being enacted within a particular field, but this realization by both seems to undeniably connect their understanding of the more latent aspects of social capital.

According to Bourdieu, habitus refers to the social context within which a social actor is socialized. Thus, it is the social platform, itself, that equips one with the social reality they become accustomed to. Out of habitus comes field, the manner in which one integrates and displays their habitus. To this end, it is the social exchange and interaction between two or more social actors. To illustrate this, we assume that an individual wishes to better his place in society. He therefore accumulates social capital by involving himself in a social network, adhering to the norms of that group, allowing him to later access the resources (e.g. social relationships) gained over time. If, in the case of education, he uses these resources to better his educational outcomes, thereby enabling him to become socially mobile, he effectively has worked to reiterate and reproduce the stratification of society, as social capital has done little to alleviate the system as a whole. This may be one negative aspect of social capital, but seems to be an inevitable one in and of itself, as are all forms of capital.

Positive consequences of social capital

Compared to Bourdieu, Robert D. Putnam has used the concept in a much more positive light: though he was at first careful to argue that social capital was a neutral term, stating "whether or not heshared are praiseworthy is, of course, entirely another matter," his work on American society tends to frame social capital as a producer of "civic engagement" and also a broad societal measure of communal health.Alessandrini, M. (2002). ''Is Civil Society an Adequate Theory?'' He also transforms social capital from a resource possessed by individuals to an attribute of collectives, focusing on norms and trust as producers of social capital to the exclusion of networks.

Mahyar Arefi (2003) identifies consensus-building as a direct positive indicator of social capital. Consensus implies "shared interest" and agreement among various actors and stakeholders to induce collective action. ''Collective action'' is thus an indicator of increased social capital.

Subtypes

Bonding, bridging, linking

In '' Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community'' (2000), Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam writes:

Henry Ward Beecher's advice a century ago to 'multiply picnics' is not entirely ridiculous today. We should do this, ironically, not because it will be good for America – though it will be – but because it will be good for us.

Putnam speaks of two main components of the concept, the creation of which Putnam credits to Ross Gittell and Avis Vidal:

# Bonding social capital: the value assigned to social networks between homogeneous groups of people.
# Bridging social capital: the value assigned to social networks between socially heterogeneous groups.

Typical examples are that criminal gangs create bonding social capital, while choirs and bowling clubs (hence the title, as Putnam lamented their decline) create bridging social capital. The distinction is useful in highlighting how social capital may not always be beneficial for society as a whole (though it is always an asset for those individuals and groups involved). Horizontal networks of individual citizens and groups that enhance community productivity and cohesion are said to be positive social capital assets whereas self-serving exclusive gangs and hierarchical patronage systems that operate at cross purposes to societal interests can be thought of as negative social capital burdens on society.

Similar to Putnam, Daniel P. Aldrich describes three mechanisms of social capital:

# Bonding capital: the relationships a person has with friends and family, making it also the strongest form of social capital.
# Bridging capital: the relationship between friends of friends, making its strength secondary to bonding capital.
# Linking capital: the relationship between a person and a government official or other elected leader.

Aldrich also applies the ideas of social capital to the fundamental principles of disaster recovery, and discusses factors that either aid or impede recovery, such as extent of damage, population density, quality of government and aid. In his book ''Building Resilience: Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery'', he primarily examines Japanese recovery following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown.

Social capital development on the internet via social networking websites such as Facebook or Myspace tends to be bridging capital according to one study, though "virtual" social capital is a new area of research.

Consummatory, instrumental

There are two other sub-sources of social capital:Portes pp. 7–8

# Consummatory capital: a behavior that is made up of actions that fulfill a basis of doing what is inherent.
#* Examples include value interjection and solidarity.
# Instrumental capital: behavior that is taught through ones surroundings over time.

Consummatory capital

Consummatory capital a behavior that is made up of actions that fulfill a basis of doing what is inherent. Two examples of consummatory social capital are value interjection and solidarity.

Value interjection: refers to the behavior of individuals or groups adhering to societal norms by meeting expected obligations, such as following established rules, timely bill payments, and punctuality. Diligent adherence contributes personal advantages like financial stability and improved relationships, as well as broader societal gains, including enhanced market confidence and perceived reliability.

Coleman goes on to say that when people live in this way and benefit from this type of social capital, individuals in the society are able to rest assured that their belongings and family will be safe. This understanding of solidarity may be traced to 19th century socialist thinkers, whose main focus was the urban working class of the Industrial Revolution. They analyzed the reasons these workers supported each other for the benefit of the group and held that this support was an adaptation to the immediate social environment, as opposed to a trait that had been taught to the workers in their youth. As another example, Coleman states that possessing this type of social capital individuals to stand up for what they believe in, and even die for it, in the face of adversity.Portes p. 8

While the notion of ''solidarity as social capital'' is sometimes attributed to Karl Marx, in particular, the term ''social capital'' had a quite different meaning for Marx. All forms of "capital" were, for Marx, possessed only by capitalists and he emphasized the basis of labour in capitalist society, as a class constituted by individuals obliged to sell their labour power, because they lacked sufficient capital, in any sense of the word, to do otherwise. Marx saw "social capital" as a theoretical total amount of capital, purely in the sense of accumulated wealth or property, that existed in a particular society. He thereby contrasted it with specific and discrete "individual capital."

Instrumental capital

Instrumental capital is behavior that is taught through one's surroundings over time. Individuals donating their resources are not seeking direct repayment from the recipient, but motivated by membership in the same social structure. Donors might not see a direct repayment, but, most commonly, they will be held by the society in greater honor.

Portes mentions the donation of a scholarship to a member of the same ethnic group as an example of this. The donor is not giving up resources to be directly repaid by the recipient, but, as stated above, the honor of the community. With this in mind, recipients might not know the benefactor personally, but prospers as a member of the same social group.

Social capital is also linked with religious communities. Religion represents an important aspect of social capital (religious social capital). However, Putnam found that membership in secular organizations in the United States had a greater association with volunteering, blood donations, charity, and philanthropy than membership in religious organizations, and membership in secular organizations was associated with participation in community projects while membership in religious organizations was not.

Measurement

There is no widely held consensus on how to measure social capital, which has become a debate in itself. While usually one can intuitively sense the level/amount of social capital present in a given relationship (regardless of type or scale), quantitative measuring has proven somewhat complicated, resulting in different metrics for different functions.

Sociologists Carl L. Bankston and Min Zhou have argued that one of the reasons social capital is so difficult to measure is that it is neither an individual-level nor a group-level phenomenon, but one that emerges across levels of analysis as individuals participate in groups. They argue that the metaphor of "capital" may be misleading because, unlike financial capital, which is a resource held by an individual, the benefits of forms of social organization are not held by actors, but are results of the participation of actors in advantageously organized groups.

Name generators

One type of quantitative social capital measure uses name generators to construct social networks and to measure the level of social capital. These networks are constructed by asking participants to name people that they interact with, such as "Name all the people you've discussed important matters with in the past six months." Name generators are often useful to construct core discussion networks of close ties, rather than weaker ties.

Social capital scales

Many studies measure social capital by asking the question: "do you trust the others?" Other researches analyse the participation in voluntary associations or civic activities.

To expand upon the methodological potential of measuring online and offline social bonding, as it relates to social capital, Williams (2006), offers a matrix of social capital measures that distinguishes social bridging as a form of less emotionally-tethered relationships compared to bonding. Bonding and bridging sub-scales are proposed, which have been adopted by over 300 scholarly articles.

Lin, Peng, Kim, Kim & LaRose (2012) offer a noteworthy application of the scale by measuring international residents originating from locations outside of the United States. The study found that social media platforms like Facebook provide an opportunity for increased social capital, but mostly for extroverts. However, less introverted social media users could engage social media and build social capital by connecting with Americans before arriving and then maintaining old relationships from home upon arriving to the states. The ultimate outcome of the study indicates that social capital is measurable and is a concept that may be operationalized to understand strategies for coping with cross-cultural immersion through online engagement.

Cohesion measures

The level of cohesion of a group also affects its social capital and vice versa. However, there is no one quantitative way of determining the level of cohesiveness, but rather a collection of social network models that researchers have used over the decades to operationalize social capital. One of the dominant methods is Ronald Burt's constraint measure, which taps into the role of tie strength and group cohesion. Another network-based model is network transitivity.

Economic measures

Knack and Keefer (1996) measured econometric correlations between confidence and civic cooperation norms, with economic growth in a large group of countries. They found that confidence and civic cooperation have a great impact in economic growth, and that in less polarized societies in terms of inequality and ethnic differences, social capital is bigger.

Narayan and Pritchet (1997) researched the associativity degree and economic performance in rural homes of Tanzania. They observed that even in high poverty indexes, families with higher levels of incomes had more participation in collective organizations. The social capital they accumulated because of this participation had individual benefits for them, and created collective benefits through different routes, for example: their agricultural practices were better than those of the families without participation (they had more information about agrochemicals, fertilizers and seeds); they had more information about the market; they were prepared to take more risks, because being part of a social network made them feel more protected; they had an influence on the improvement of public services, showing a bigger level of participation in schools; they cooperated more in the municipality level.

Group membership-based

In measuring political social capital, it is common to take the sum of society's membership of its groups. Groups with higher membership (such as political parties) contribute more to the amount of capital than groups with lower membership, although many groups with low membership (such as communities) still add up to be significant. While it may seem that this is limited by population, this need not be the case as people join multiple groups. In a study done by Yankee City, a community of 17,000 people was found to have over 22,000 different groups.

How a group relates to the rest of society also affects social capital, but in a different manner. Strong internal ties can in some cases weaken the group's perceived capital in the eyes of the general public, as in cases where the group is geared towards crime, distrust, intolerance, violence or hatred towards others. The Ku Klux Klan is an example of this kind of organizations.

Social behaviour-based

Foschi and Lauriola have presented a measure of sociability as a proxy of social capital. The authors demonstrated that facets of sociability can mediate between general personality traits and measures of civic involvement and political participation, as predictors of social capital, in a holistic model of political behavior.

The World Social Capital Monitor is an instrument for measuring social goods and social capital created by the United Nations Sustainable Development Group in partnership with civil society actors. The project identifies social values such as trust, solidarity, helpfulness, friendliness, hospitality and the willingness to finance public goods with the help of anonymous surveys. The surveys started in 2016.

Integrating history and socio-economic analysis

Beyond Putnam

While influential, some have identified areas of concern or improvement within the work of Robert D. Putnam. This includes:
* the lack of awareness of the structural socio-economic conditions of society. For example, the level of income inequality.
* the excessive determinism of the historical analysis.
* Putnam's social capital index does not consider racial diversity which links to worse outcomes. Nor does Putnam consider ethnic diversity, which often creates barriers to cooperation and democratization.
* the conflation of social capital with civil society