Social Capital - The Right Connections

Scholars define social capital as a socio-structural resource that is considered to be the capital of individuals. This asset is not a single object; it is actually a set of characteristics in the social structure that facilitates social action for individuals (Coleman 1998:467). Social ties allow the flow of information and resources, and they are thus valuable both as a stock of support and as transmission channels. They are also the raw material of reciprocity and trust: these can only be maintained when interactions take place in sufficiently dense networks, that is, when it becomes possible to monitor individual reputations. Social capital is thus a unique mixture of 'structure and content' (Degenne and Forsé 1999, p. 116), a concept that aims to capture the nature of social interactions through which, paraphrasing Mandeville, private vices can become public benefits. It is in the field of political participation that this twofold dimension finds a highly relevant example. The idea that social capital promotes democratic virtue and civic engagement, popularised by Putnam a decade ago (Putnam 1995; Putnam 2000; Putnam et al. 1993), has become a common place in sociology.

It is assumed that Networks have positive externalities that go beyond the benefits individuals pursue: They promote norms of generalised reciprocity and the emergence of trust, they facilitate coordination and communication, they contribute to the spread of political expertise, they reduce opportunism and foster collaboration and they enhance the participant’s “taste” for collective benefits (Putnam 2000, pp. 20-22).

On the other hand, there is some analytical evidence against the idea that dense networks of interaction lead to a reduction of opportunism: when transmitting information, these can actually increase free-riding (Lazer 2003). What Putman and his disciples show is a correlation between membership and political action with no structural component. In his approach, Putnam “fails to account for the ways in which phenomena such as levels of trust in a society are endogenous outcomes of social relations” (Durlauf, 2002: 263). In this respect, the result of a study in a more systematic approach shows that political engagement is a function of:

1)the size of the network,
2)the political expertise of its members and
3)the frequency of interaction between them (La Due Lake and Huckfeldt 1998).

However, Traditional network analysis, on the other hand, takes into account the full importance of network structural properties to the transmission of information and resources, and their access and control. This approach stresses the relevance of the distinct positions individuals hold in the global network, a structural location that gives them a more or less privileged access to resources. That structure matters is one of the core claims of social capital research. How fast and efficiently information and resources can spread will therefore depend on the network ‘structural properties‘. We know that failure to build dynamic network ties [capturing emergent norms and conventions] has negative political consequences, such as the loss of common experience and a consequent fragmentation of society (Sunstein 2001).

The overall network connectedness is assumed to enrich information flow and, with this, the pool of ideas and interests that have to be publicly defended. Networks are said to contribute to the existence of a forum where everybody has the chance to spread their views. Political information flows through social networks, and in these networks public life is discussed - networks of civic engagement instil in their members habits of cooperation and public spiritedness, as well as the practical skills necessary to partake in public life” (Putnam 2000, p. 338) - but also trustworthiness and cooperation: “Dense social ties facilitate gossip and other valuable ways of cultivating reputation” (Putnam 2000, p. 21). In this literature, it is not only “civic virtues” that matter, but also other technical (and more mundane) skills such as learning how to value and assess arguments, how to work out opinions or how to develop ideas. It is having confidence in the value of one’s opinion that matters.

Social capital, to sum up, is alleged to benefit democracy by educating its citizens, by putting them together and making them learn from each other. In other words, the core assumption in the literature is that social capital “serves to enhance human capital on the cheap” (La Due Lake and Huckfeldt 1998, p. 581).

Nonetheless, the study on structure of networks shows that there is more to diffusion effects than just the density of networks: the distribution of ties, and its impact in the overall structure, also plays a significant role in the diffusion efficiency, the role that Putnam ignores. A lower density does not necessarily mean that civic networks do not accomplish their function of spreading political information any more. They might be accomplishing it even better if the right number of individuals have the right number of connections. The link between level of associationism, networks, and democracy is not as straightforward as social capital literature assumes. what matters is not how much individuals are connected but rather how a particular number of individuals manage to connect the rest.

These “highly connected individuals” have an influence disproportionate to their number (Watts 2003, p. 105). The dynamics that take place on networks depend on their structure. And their structure determines whether the alleged effects of social capital are true or not. Networks facilitate these processes under certain circumstances that cannot be simply reduced to the level of associationism and the consequent density of networks.

Social capital theory still has to explain how networks promote cooperation at the same time that they promote an efficient information diffusion. It has to differentiate between density and efficiency, and between efficiency in the transmission of information and efficiency in the promotion of cooperation. Finally, when the outcome under analysis is democracy and political participation, another distinction is needed: a normative definition of efficiency has to be clearly delimited to compare it with the technical definition. A network where all nodes are exclusively connected to a central node is highly efficient, but it is closer to Orwell’s totalitarian society than to a civic community. Different network designs can be equally effective in diffusing information or resources, but designs do not contain information about the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ of their implementation. A normative “criterion” is necessary to define “efficiency” when applied to the role networks play in the field of political participation.


Extracted from:
The Role of Dynamic Networks in Social Capital: A Simulation Experiment
University of Oxford, Dept of Sociology, 2004

Social capital, thus is measured according to the intensity and quality of relations, interactions among individuals and groups, as well as reciprocal respect for shared norms and values. It is a sense of belonging and integrity, which form the basis of social cohesion (Kareken and Johnson, 1998)