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Volume 13 Number 4
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Editorial
Variously glossed as ‘social connections’, ‘social cohesion’, ‘mutual trust’, or even ‘the glue that binds society together’, the concept of social capital has quickly come to be seen as the sine qua non of international development. Describing it as the ‘missing link’ and a ‘development imperative’, the World Bank now regards social capital as ‘critical for poverty alleviation and sustainable human and economic development’. It holds a burgeoning library on the subject that includes both published works and research in progress.(1) The Bank, among others, has also designed questionnaires and other tools with which to measure social capital as it relates to development – and it can surely be only a matter of time before these are added to the logframes, participatory appraisals, gender analysis frameworks, social cost-benefit analyses, and other ‘must-use’ methods pushed by donor agencies.
Nor is the interest in social capital limited to its application to developing countries, or to development as such. The Bank’s library currently houses more items on OECD countries (376) or items with a global rather than a country-specific focus (214) than on all developing and ‘transition’ counties combined (235). In the UK, using the OECD definition of social capital as ‘networks together with values and understandings that facilitate cooperation within or among groups’ (OECD 2001:41), the Office of National Statistics is coordinating a pan-government project to develop an operational definition of social capital, in conjunction with a framework for its measurement and analysis. To this end, it has undertaken an extensive literature review, organised seminars and conferences, and produced scholarly articles on social trends in volunteering, informal care, and social behaviour. In the USA, a major Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey has been undertaken in order to measure levels of civic engagement throughout the country. Questions focused on issues such as informal socialising, religious participation, volunteering and philanthropy, the breadth of people’s social networks, and the levels of trust in government bodies. The belief underlying such initiatives is that communities with high levels of social capital are likely to have higher educational achievements, better performing public institutions, faster economic growth, improved health and well-being, and less crime and violence. Essentially, a virtuous circle ensues whereby neighbourliness and civic responsibility lead to health, wealth, and happiness, which in turn make people more likely to invest in and care for each other.
It all sounds too good to be true, and indeed the concept of social capital has a growing band of critics. Some argue that it adds more rhetoric than substance to what sociologists already knew, and that its mixed intellectual heritage detracts from its usefulness as an analytical tool. There are concerns too about how well the concept can explain or deal with social and economic cleavages, such as class, gender, or cultural identity; or with the darker side of reciprocity, whereby those who belong to certain social networks are thereby able to help each other and exclude others (see Baron et al. 2001). There are also questions about how useful it is to develop universal definitions and measures in any case – a welfare state in an industrialised country is obviously a very different environment for social relationships than is a rural society in which there is no legitimate or functioning government, or where people’s primordial identities are with clans, tribes, ethnic groups, or other sub-national entities. But perhaps one of the most damning critiques is that the rise of social capital forms part of the ‘anti-politics machine’, by obscuring class and power relations (Harriss 2002). All the social glue in the world will not do much to ensure that financial capital is invested in social justice goals; and the accumulation of vast personal or corporate wealth—and the power it confers—has very little to do with factors such as the density of philanthropic organisations within a given society or whether most citizens turn out for local elections.
As a framework for improving development practice, the record is also mixed. Sanae Ito finds that while the concept of social capital is often invoked to explain the success of microfinance programmes, this does not throw much light on what sort of programmes, in terms of design and implementation, represent good practice. Looking at various models for incorporating parents and local communities in the management of rural schools in Pakistan, Shahrukh Rafi Khan believes that public sector reform aimed at altering the power relations between parents, teachers, and government officials is needed to make such participation effective. Writing about Malawi, Paul Kishindo argues that while the intended beneficiaries of ‘self-help’ projects need to be persuaded that the costs of participation are justified, their decision to participate is more often subject to social and other pressures, and a development programme may therefore depend more on how much political backing it can mobilise than on how much support it has among poor communities. Kyoko Kusakabe examines the situation of women in various forms of aquaculture in Thailand, and discovers that as the activity becomes more intensive, and potentially more profitable, women lose their autonomy, although they are expected to invest all their resources in the family enterprise. The author’s findings show that what is important in this case is not how much women have, but how much they have in relation to their husbands. Turning to East Timor, Cecilia Brunnstrom and Ines Smyth focus on the heavy-handed practices of most aid agencies in the wake of the conflict, and argue that if international NGOs and the wider international community do not alter their approach, they will suffocate rather than foster the development of a viable and autonomous civil society in the countries in which they operate.
More positively, Yuuki Suehiro and Penny Altman describe a reproductive health education and community outreach project in Cambodia that has been implemented by the Ministry of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs, drawing on significant volunteer input. Its success is ascribed to the fact that the government-run project has made a serious commitment to follow through on capacity building at all levels. Eleanor Wint describes how a social capital framework has been found helpful in Jamaica, where it has been used to promote participatory approaches to making decisions, and to identify problems and suggest solutions to them, as part of the process of setting national development goals. Finally, and although they do not refer to social capital as such, Terence Loomis and John Mahima+ describe a research project between Mäori organisations and a team from the University of Waikato that has enabled the indigenous communities to articulate their own values and understanding of development, establish a comprehensive inventory of resources and taonga (treasures), identify ways to assess the costs and benefits of investment options, and explore participatory methods for involving the community in strategic decision making – in other words, to define their own sustainable development.
Note
1 See www.worldbank.org/poverty/scapital (accessed 31 March 2003).References
Baron, S., J. Field, and T. Schuller (eds.) Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, Oxford:OUP.
Harriss, J. (2002) Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital, London: Anthem Press.
OECD (2001) The Well-Being of Nations: the Role of Human and Social Capital, Paris: OECD.Deborah Eade
Oxfam GB
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