Race, Neighborhoods, and the Misuse of Social Capital

Race, Neighborhoods, and the Misuse of Social Capital

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Race, Neighborhoods, and

the Misuse of Social Capital

Edited by James Jennings

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RACE, NEIGHBORHOODS, AND THE MISUSE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL

Copyright © James Jennings, 2007.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published in 2007 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN™175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 andHoundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS.Companies and representatives throughout the world.

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the PalgraveMacmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

ISBN-13: 9–781–4039–8076–2ISBN-10: 1–4039–8076–4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Race, neighborhoods, and the misuse of social capital / edited by James Jennings.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-4039-8076-4

1. Social capital (Sociology)—United States. 2. Social capital (Sociology)—Nova Scotia—Halifax. 3. Social capital (Sociology)—New Zealand. 4. Urban poor—United States. 5. Urban poor—Nova Scotia—Halifax. 6. Urban poor—NewZealand. 7. Community development—United States. 8. Community develop-ment—Nova Scotia—Halifax. 9. Community development—New Zealand. 10.United States—Social policy—1993- I. Jennings, James, 1949- II. Title.

HM708.R33 2007307.3'416089—dc22

2006032379

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Scribe Inc.

First edition: June 2007

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

PrefaceLouise Simmons vii

IntroductionJames Jennings 1

1. Race, Social Relations, and the Study of Social CapitalLisa García Bedolla 7

2. Old Whines in New Bottles: Robert Putnam, Richard Florida, and the “Community” Problem in Contemporary AmericaDaniel J. Monti, Jr. 21

3. Social Capital, the Sow’s Ear, and the Closing of the Political UniverseStephen Samuel Smith and Jessica Kulynych 41

4. Moving Beyond Vagueness: Social Capital, Social Networks, and Economic OutcomesRussell Williams 67

5. Social Capital, Race, and the Future of Inner-City NeighborhoodsJames Jennings 87

6. Social Capital in Refugee and Immigrant CommunitiesDavid Turcotte and Linda Silka 109

7. From Africville to Globalville: Race, Poverty, and Urban Governance in Halifax, Nova ScotiaKaren Bridgett Murray 133

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8. The Political Use of Social Capital in New ZealandRichard Davis 145

Bibliography 157

Contributors 171

Index 175

VI CONTENTS

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Preface

For those of us who have been reluctant to climb aboard the socialcapital bandwagon during the past decade, this volume validates

our discomfort at seeing this construct superimposed on efforts to dealwith urban problems and the needs of under-resourced local commu-nities. The chapters ahead provide a comprehensive and meticulouscritique of social capital—its theoretical and conceptual foundations—and an analysis of how it doesn’t necessarily work as the underpinningof solutions for the problems of marginalized populations. The contrib-utors demonstrate convincingly that the notion of social capital ignoresor glosses over economic and political dynamics that give rise toinequality. In addition, it embodies political and linguistic assumptionsthat need to be disentangled and reassessed if we truly wish to addresssocial injustices.

Given the popularity of social capital and the tacit acceptance ofassumptions embodied in this construct, this volume is a welcome con-tribution to contemporary social policy discourse. For social capitalhas currency not only in the academic community, it has also beenadopted by policymakers and those in philanthropic, communityorganizing, or advocacy activities, who perhaps uncritically advancethe acquisition of social capital by the disenfranchised as a programgoal. Hopefully these chapters can help reframe priorities and reassesshow best to achieve equity-oriented goals. For readers who continue todraw on the idea of social capital in their endeavors, the lessons of thisvolume can be helpful in overcoming its limitations.

This anthology continues a long debate over the nature of povertyand inequality, particularly in the U.S. context and, interestingly,increasingly in an international context, as several chapters reveal.Where do we locate the causes—in the individual, the family, or thecommunity, or the social, political, and economic forces that impactthese components of society? What are the most effective solutions?What role should the public sector play? How much should we expect

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from government in solving poverty? These questions and debatesresound through recent periods and endure within policy discourse.Thankfully, James Jennings and the other outstanding contributors haveprovided a new weapon and a much-needed perspective in this struggle.

Louise SimmonsUniversity of Connecticut

VIII PREFACE

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Introduction

James Jennings

The idea of social capital has had an enormous impact in influenc-ing theories and strategies about resolving poverty. It has been

incorporated in public policies, as well as private foundation grant-making that focuses on poverty and local neighborhood revitalization.Unfortunately, in the latter case, social capital has not been thoroughlyscrutinized as the basis for resolving racial and spatial inequality. Awide range of researchers, foundation representatives, and governmentofficials simply praise the wonders of social capital and thereby dis-courage serious critique about how this concept can actually resolve—or not resolve—social and economic inequality in local places. Worse,this chorus has encouraged the adoption of public policies that ulti-mately weaken low-income and working-class neighborhoods in citiesand also, ironically, weaken civic participation aimed at challengingsuch policies and related strategies.

This anthology focuses on four key questions related to race, neigh-borhoods, and social capital. First, how is social capital presented ordiscussed within contexts of racial and spatial inequality? How doesthis idea inform public policy, research regarding neighborhood revi-talization, or local economic development? Related to this question, isthe building—or utilization—of social capital an effective alternative toclass or neighborhood-based political mobilization in struggles andconflict aimed at achieving equity? And, finally, what kinds of politicaland economic strategies can be proposed to ensure that all people andcommunities have access to basic economic benefits and opportunities–regardless of the “stock of social capital”?

In response to these questions, the essays in this collection revealtheoretical and conceptual weaknesses of social capital as a resourcefor meeting the economic needs associated with impoverished and

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low-income communities in the urban United States, as well as in othernations. The contributors also rely on historical analysis and empiricalevidence to show the limitations of the concept of social capital forunderstanding and responding to racial and spatial inequality. Theauthors challenge the idea that the language and discourse of social cap-ital is an explanation and diagnosis for racial and spatial inequality inurban neighborhoods.

The contributors identify a major problem with the public discourseand research related to social capital in that it is presented devoid of his-torical context. Specifically, the role of social capital in U.S. history, forexample, or its role in the development of institutional racism and sex-ism, is overlooked by many scholars. Social capital as a glue to exploitcommunities in earlier periods, or to enable such communities to resistracial democracy (as was the case with White civic associations in the1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, in the urban United States) becomesirrelevant within a historical context. This limitation allows for the erro-neous presentation of social capital emerging uniformly in differentracial and ethnic communities. Implicit in this idea is the presumptionthat racial inequality is irrelevant or insignificant today.

This kind of presentation also tends to render invisible the struggles ofpoor people against institutional injustice—including the victories ofpoor people and the violence directed against them. In other words, areading of the racial and political history of the United States raises ques-tions about contemporary concerns regarding the apparent absence ofsocial capital in some communities, and it counters the notions that socialnetworks and trust in relation to objective economic conditions can beanalyzed in the absence of a framework of power and racial analysis.

Another concern discussed by the authors is that social capital isessentially a behavioral idea, and as such it points to civic responses toproblems like poverty, joblessness, crime, and local economic distress inurban places that overlook structural explanations. The building ofsocial capital is proposed as a response to these kinds of challenges. Theneed for political mobilization on the part of interests that lack wealth orpower is not considered part of the social capital agenda.

In much of the extant literature on social capital and low-incomecommunities of color there is a presumption that there is a lack of civicparticipation, or concern about civic issues, on the part of the residents.A variant of this point of view is the accompanying presumption thathighly impoverished neighborhoods have few economic resources thatcan be utilized on behalf of the residents. Loic J. D. Wacquant refers tothis package of presumptions as a “pernicious premise” that “has become

2 RACE, NEIGHBORHOODS,AND THE MISUSE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL


embedded in the paradigm of many researchers who study and writeabout poor and predominantly Black urban communities.” While thispremise has been discredited by a few urban researchers, this “profile indefect—is deeply entrenched in American social science.”

The pernicious premise described by Wacquant leads to the call forbuilding social capital in inner-city communities. The essential questionin this kind of discussion is how to encourage the building of a stock ofsocial capital in impoverished communities. Realization of this possibil-ity will lead to citizens organizing on the basis of mutual interests andtrusts aimed at improving collective living conditions and an increasedcapacity for resolving a range of neighborhood problems.

The language and discourse of social capital is associated with policyinitiatives that serve to de-politicize poor and working-class interests insociety. Such public policies include so-called “welfare reform” in theUnited States, as well as the popular call among some researchers to “de-concentrate” poverty in certain places. While the rhetoric of these policystrategies seem benign, in fact there is a perception of low-income andworking-class people as deficient in terms of the work ethic, or motiva-tion to improve one’s social and economic status in life, and that this iswhy they remain poor. An essential and underlying idea of these kindsof public policies is that poor people and children must be exposed tonormal, middle-class values and living styles so that they can have mod-els upon which to improve their status. This is one way of building orencouraging social capital.

While social capital is presented as beneficial in improving the livesof poor people in urban areas, it is actually functional for the manage-ment of urban space on behalf of corporate agendas and interests. Animportant critique of some of the contributors is that this idea facilitatespolitics that benefit powerful institutional players and that are aimed atacquiring land deemed valuable by corporate elites. Emphasizing theimportance of attracting a middle class, or a creative class, to re-settle inurban areas has emerged as a strategy for neighborhood revitalization.This strategy is partially justified by claiming that these new residentsbring into urban communities something that was previously lacking:social capital. Thus, government and corporate partnerships should pro-vide support to strategies that encourage professionals to return to cities.Of course, the fact that this same partnership is responsible for the poli-cies and practices that led to the impoverishment of urban places is con-veniently overlooked.

The anthology begins with a historical essay by political scientist LisaGarcía Bedolla. The author argues that social capital has been a glue or

INTRODUCTION 3


tool used in the oppression of racial and ethnic minorities. Reminiscingabout the loss of social capital becomes romantic if this fact is over-looked. Bedolla provides important examples in U.S. history showing theugly and racist side of social capital. This is a point that she says cannotbe ignored in current analysis. Sociologist Daniel J. Monti, Jr., continuesthe overall critique by focusing on the theoretical and empirical limita-tions of the idea of social capital and how it is applied to the suggestionthat a creative class can save inner-city neighborhoods. He utilizes amethodological challenge to the works by Robert Putnam and RichardFlorida to show the limitations of this concept as applied to neighbor-hood revitalization in U.S. urban society. He reminds the reader, further-more, that human beings have always reminisced about the “good oledays,” but this should not drive public policy today.

Stephen S. Smith and Jessica Kulyncyh show how questions of politicsand power are removed from discussions of social capital. They illustratehow language and symbolism associated with social capital becomes apolitical tool to dampen class-based challenges to structural inequality.Interestingly, focusing on the need to build social networks as a tool forimproving living conditions becomes a way to stifle civic discourse thatquestions inequality in U.S. society. They utilize this approach to critiquehow some organizations, such as the Industrial Areas Foundation, pur-sue community building today.

According to economist Russell Williams, while social capital isemphasized in the economic development literature, it is the idea of“social networks” that can lead to meaningful public policies that addressthe effects of structural inequality such as poverty, unemployment, andjoblessness in inner-city areas. He believes that the latter is more usefulfor explaining and responding to inequality. Williams discusses theoret-ical weaknesses inherent in the term social capital but begins with thefact that social capital can mean different things for different groups insociety. Emphasizing social networks, or the actual relationships thatindividuals have with others and that are linked directly or indirectly toinstitutions, allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the basisand perpetuation of inequality or certain economic behaviors.

In the next chapter, I argue that the language of social capital is con-sistent with a political economy that favors powerful corporate agendas.Social capital justifies and facilitates a pro-growth logic that benefits cor-porations and wealthy interests over those of low-income and working-class neighborhoods. I use the example of low-income Black and Latinoneighborhoods to show the inaccuracy of applying a social capital lensto understand the challenges facing these communities. I propose that



an urban politics aimed at expanding social and economic democracyfor the benefit of all people must challenge corporate agendas that areunaccountable to the well-being of the general public. Thus, the keyissue for building local democracy is not the particular stock of socialcapital, but rather the capacity for local groups to change conditions ofspatial and racial inequality and challenge the political and policy dom-ination of corporate power.

The essay by sociologists David Turcotte and Linda Silka helps toillustrate the inconsistency between the call for social capital on the partof government and its private-sector partners and the lack of support fortapping impressive networks of social trust and cooperation among newimmigrant groups. Immigrant communities are lauded for their stock ofsocial capital by researchers, media, and government. Yet, Turcotte andSilka provide a comprehensive case study of Asian-descent immigrantgroups showing that government ignores its own rhetoric by not assist-ing these same communities in resolving obstacles to more successfuleconomic activities. This is but one example where communities can berich in social capital, yet, through government inattention or via eco-nomic development models adopted by government in partnership withpowerful private interests, diluted in the capacity to improve their situa-tion. Indeed, praising immigrant groups for their stock of social capitalwhile continuing policies and practices of institutions that undermineeconomic opportunities is not only a paradox but an excuse for govern-ment inattentiveness to the needs of these groups.

This reader includes two selections focusing on urban and low-incomeneighborhoods outside the United States, which serves to show how thediscussions raised by the contributors are global. Political scientist KarenBridgett Murray uses the case of Halifax, Canada to show how publicpolicies have segregated parts of this city and created racial differences inthe living conditions of White and Black Canadians. The dislocation of aonce-thriving Black community—rich with social capital—produced aneed for human services in response to the social and economic needsof residents. Today, the idea of social capital provides a justification toplace greater pressures on nonprofits to provide human services withoutincreasing resources in these places. However, social capital neutralizesnonprofits’ efforts to engage in strategies aimed at challenging the causesof social and economic inequality.

Richard Davis, a member of the Churches’ Agency on Social Issues inNew Zealand, proposes that social capital has been used similarly in NewZealand. In his short but powerful analysis based on one of his public lec-tures, he shows that this concept became an ideological and political tool

INTRODUCTION 5


on the part of that nation’s New Right to disestablish the welfare stateand push privatization in the New Zealand economy. Although the rhet-oric of social capital was initially utilized by conservatives, the LabourParty of New Zealand has adopted it to rationalize social service cut-backs, thereby undermining nonprofit organizations, a phenomenonsimilarly described by Murray. Davis analyzes the speeches of a formerprime minister and shows that the call for social capital was consistentlyassociated with calls for reducing social services and elevating the poten-tial use of the free market to respond to the needs of people.

We hope that this collection of essays helps to expand the civic andpolitical debates about social capital by questioning the conceptual dis-connection of this idea from the continuing existence and growingstructural inequalities in our societies. More importantly, we hope theseessays can help to challenge public policies that ignore the voices (andhistories) and needs of poor and working-class people and all residentsof urban neighborhoods who have suffered from years of neglect by thegovernment and irresponsible actions of powerful corporations.



Chapter 1

Race, Social Relations, and the Study of Social Capital

Lisa García Bedolla

Few social scientists ever generate the attention or controversy thatRobert Putnam has since he first made his social capital argument

in 1993.1 In Making Democracy Work, Putnam argued that political dif-ferences between northern and southern Italy could be explained bydifferences in political culture, particularly social capital, between thetwo regions. In recent work, Putnam applies this social capital modelto the United States; he argues that declines in social capital go a longway toward explaining increasing voter apathy and decreasing civicengagement among Americans. This article raised a stream of contro-versy and political debate, much of which Putnam responded to withhis book, Bowling Alone.2 While Putnam addresses his critics in thiswork, the central argument remains the same: since the mid-1960spolitical trust, social connectedness, and civic activity has declined pre-cipitously in the United States, and that the root explanation for thisdecline lies in the generational differences between Americans bornafter World War II and those born before.

There have been many criticisms of Putnam’s argument, the bulk ofwhich we will not get into here.3 Yet, even these critics still, to a largeextent, use Putnam’s model as their point of departure. For that reason,it is useful to consider Putnam’s work on its own terms. In so doing, wemake two assumptions. First, that Putnam is correct: that social capitalas a whole is declining in the United States. Second, that the social cap-ital model is useful: that increasing community-level social capital may

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serve as a way to increase people’s civic engagement and counteract thenegative effects of low socioeconomic status. The latter could be espe-cially useful when considering the civic engagement of members of mar-ginal groups.

So the question becomes: if we accept these two factors, is there anyway to improve Putnam’s model? We argue that there is. Our basic argu-ment is that Putnam’s individual-level focus ignores the role social rela-tions play in the structure and function of social capital in the UnitedStates. How Putnam addresses the role of race, in particular, highlightsthe larger theoretical problem underlying his analysis.

What do we mean by social relations? Emirbayer defines the study ofsocial relations as analysis that focuses on trans-action versus inter-action. He argues that in a relational analysis, “the very terms or unitsinvolved . . . derive their meaning, significance, and identity from(changing) functional roles they play within that transaction.”4 As aresult, he says, “things” can only exist in relation to one another and cannever be treated as “given” in isolation.”5 Thus, “individual persons . . .are inseparable from the transactional contexts within which they areembedded.”6 Emirbayer goes on to argue that one of the problems withstandard statistical models in social science is that they assume thatindependent variables remain fixed and unchanging as they “bounce”off one another.7 In these models it is assumed that the independentvariables “act upon” the dependent variables but that none of the factorsare actually changed or affected by that interaction. More importantly,the larger sociohistorical context within which the entire interaction isembedded is often not present or accounted for in such models. Whilethese limitations are a problem for all social science research, they areespecially problematic within the context of studies of social capital, andtheir effects are most visible when considering the issue of race.

Race, Social Relations, and Social Capital

Putnam defines social capital as “features of social life—networks, norms,and trust—that enable participants to act together more effectively topursue shared objectives.”8 He emphasizes the connected aspect of socialcapital, that it refers to “social connections and the attendant norms andtrust” and therefore is about our “relations with one another” and people’s“connections with the life of their communities.”9 His argument presumesthat “the more we connect with other people, the more we trust them,and vice versa.”10 So, for Putnam, what matters are those activities thatlead people to develop deeper and more meaningful relations with one



another. That, then, serves as the foundation for other kinds of politicalactivity and/or membership.

It is this relational aspect of social capital that deserves furtherscrutiny in how it relates to issues of race. Many scholars have criticizedPutnam for his lack of focus on race. According to McClain, “mostanalyses of social capital do not confront the conditions or contingen-cies associated with race . . . and do not recognize that what might bepositively related to social capital for Whites may in fact be negativelyrelated for blacks.”11 Similarly, Portney and Berry contend that “thedebate about social capital and civic engagement largely concentrateson White, middle-class America.”12 Hero also argues, “social capitalstudies . . . focus almost entirely on aggregate outcomes and absolutegains.”13 As such, Hero challenges Putnam’s measures of social capital inthat neither the social capital index nor the civic equality index are “dis-aggregated according to race.”14

In response to these criticisms, Putnam acknowledges “the decline insocial connectedness began just after the successes of the civil rights rev-olution of the 1960s.”15 He believes this may be due to “a kind of socio-logical ‘White flight,’ as legal desegregation of civic life led Whites towithdraw from community associations.”16 However, he does not believethat race is an issue in social capital because “the erosion of social capi-tal . . . has affected all races.” In fact, during the 1980s the downturns inboth joining and trusting were even greater among African Americans(and other racial minorities). So, for Putnam, race is only an issue inso-far as Whites leave newly integrated community associations and wherethere are appreciable differences in social capital among the races. SinceWhites are not the only group with decreasing social capital, he does notbelieve that racial issues are a significant part of this story.

This formulation, like that of most political scientists looking at race,treats race as an independent variable. In other words, it questionswhether or not individuals who identify themselves as members of a par-ticular race behave in ways that are different from those who identifythemselves as being of another race. Race here serves only as a descrip-tor for a particular group of people. As Emirbayer cautions, the actualdynamics attached to the race descriptor are located outside the model.As a result, the social connectedness and attitudes that likely relatedirectly to racial identification are not present in the analysis.17 WhatPutnam is measuring is the effect of race as a biological category, ratherthan as a social one. For Putnam, since the decline he is measuring ispresent among Whites and racialized groups, then race in and of itself isnot an explanatory factor.

RACE, SOCIAL RELATIONS,AND THE STUDY OF SOCIAL CAPITAL 9


But what if we see the construction of race and of American socialand political institutions as fundamentally racialized? Smith points outthat “American racial identities have gained much of their practical real-ity from their institutionalization by political elites in laws, public poli-cies, and governmental programs.”18 In addition, Smith also tells us that,historically, U.S. citizenship in particular has been defined in ascriptiveterms, terms that through most of our history excluded women and peo-ple of color. He goes on to say that many Americans “defined their corepolitical identities in terms of their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, andculture” and “warred passionately . . . against every force and faction thatthreatened to give the U.S. citizenry a different cast.”19 Smith calls hiswork a “basic reinterpretation of American political culture,” one thatplaces race at the center of American identity and civic life.

This ascriptive understanding of who was an American has had impor-tant social, political, and economic repercussions. Our housing markets,driven by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), routinely discriminatedagainst African American and Latino buyers, encouraging racial segrega-tion and ensuring that new suburban developments were almost univer-sally middle class and White.20 Our schools, north and south, weresegregated by race. Higher education and professional employment werelargely closed to people of color. And many of the civic organizationsPutnam mentions—the Kiwanis, the Rotary Club, and others—bannedthe participation of both women and people of color. If social capital isabout building relationships within communities, these racially-biasedprograms have had an important effect on what communities looked likeand who (racially) was allowed to live in them. It makes intuitive sense,then, that race and race policies are intimately related to the creation andmaintenance of community-level social capital in the United States.

However, we do not have to rely on intuition to say that this is true.Sociologists looking at social networks have found that, even in the pres-ent day, American social networks are highly homogenous.21 This is truein terms of race and political ideology.22 In a national probability samplein the 1980s, Marsden finds that only eight percent of Americans reporthaving significant primary-level interactions with individuals of anotherrace.23 This was reported, of course, during a period of integration. Sowhat can reports of social homophily tell us? Mainly, that race is still animportant factor for people in determining with whom they can feelcomfortable and with whom they want to spend time. It seems logical,then, that race would affect a person’s feelings of attachment to his or hercommunity and the ways he or she might want to act upon that attach-ment. In other words, racial customs and attitudes are intimately related



to the development of social connections that Putnam sees as crucial tothe creation and maintenance of social capital.

If we believe that race still plays this role in American society, whatwould our causal story look like in order to explain the declines Putnamreports? One option is to imagine that the end of segregation, and theresulting upheaval, in fact made social capital more difficult to createand maintain within communities. This should not in any way be seenas an argument in support of segregation. What I am saying is that thesocial, political, legal, and economic shifts that came out of the civilrights movement constituted a far more significant challenge to “tradi-tional” American civic life than is generally acknowledged in the socialcapital literature. Put another way, for the first time in American historyWhites were faced with the possibility of living next to, working with,and attending school with people of other races. Studies of hate crimesand evolving White racial attitudes suggest that desegregation repre-sented a significant change in how politics and American society wereorganized, a change that often caused hostility and feelings of dislocationon the part of Whites.24 Conversely, racial communities lost feelings ofcohesion as middle class members were enabled to leave the segregatedcommunity and move into the suburbs. These changes are an important,and largely ignored, part of the social capital story.

The foregoing argument is different from those that criticize Putnamfor ignoring the role played by the 1960s social movements in causingchanges in social capital. Conceivably, the stock of social capital couldhave declined due to political and ideological attacks on governmentprograms and policies that provided a basis for social capital.

This is only part of the story, however. The political upheaval of the1960s likely played an important role, not just because of the role of theNew Right, but because the civil rights movement reflected a largerpolitical upheaval that began after World War II. Until World War II,U.S. national identity had been openly based on being White andChristian. Eugenics arguments regarding the effects of the “Teutonicgene” on the capacity for democracy were the subject of Congressionalspeeches and debate. Many prominent Americans, including HenryFord, initially supported Adolf Hitler’s race project. After the war, how-ever, things changed.25 Fighting fascism made it more difficult to sup-port similar racial projects at home. The political organizing that beganin the late 1940s and 1950s were in fact the beginning of what wouldbecome the civil rights movement.26

This historical change might be the watershed that explains Putnam’sgenerational story; it may be that Americans born after World War II are



less civically involved because World War II marks a significant shift inthe definition of what it means to be an American, and, by extension,part of the American social, economic, and political community. For thefirst time in U.S. history Whiteness was no longer a prerequisite forinclusion in the fabric of American society. That fabric needed to berewoven, and it remains unclear how those colors will fit together. Theresulting ambiguity regarding what constitutes the American commu-nity could be an important reason why Putnam finds such a change inthe post-World War II generation. For children born after that period,the definition of “peoplehood” could no longer be, for the first time, anopenly racial one.27

Recognizing the racialized nature of American “peoplehood” alsoprovides important insights into American associational membershipand collective activity. Social capital theorists like Putnam insufficientlyanalyze the meaning and motivation behind associational membership.This point is related to the general criticism that Putnam does not dif-ferentiate among organizations.28 However, I believe it is more importantto consider what collective activity means in the first place, particularlyin relation to American civic identity.

I mention above the important changes in the shape and context ofAmerican identity brought about by the social movements of the 1960s.It follows logically that these changes would have had an effect on orga-nizational memberships as well. This is because collective activityrequires that the participant have some attachment to, or stake in, thatcollective entity. Within this context, the nature and function of the col-lective is not an issue. What is an issue is why individuals choose to actin that collective. Mancur Olsen would argue that collective action isirrational—it is much easier for a person to free ride.29 However, asMonroe points out, individuals regularly act altruistically.30 In addition,social movement theorists have shown the importance of what they callmobilizing (collective) identities to participation in those movements.31

This suggests that a purely instrumental view of collective activity pro-vides only part of the picture.

The other part of the picture is that collective action has two pur-poses—to work toward some shared objective, and to validate and rein-force the participants’ collective identity(ies), however defined.32 So,associational membership is likely, in and of itself, some sort of expres-sion of the participants’ collective identities. Given the prominence ofrace in U.S. history, it is highly likely that racial self-understanding is animportant part of why individuals join organizations. It also helps theseindividuals determine which organizations to join. This vision of the



underlying meaning of collective organization is absent from the socialcapital literature.

Toward a Racially Inclusive Theory of Social Capital

I am not arguing that the concept of social capital be thrown out com-pletely. Putnam’s work, and that of other social capital theorists, hasraised important questions about the role of context and community incivic engagement. This work complements and enhances traditionalpolitical science studies of political behavior. If the social capital argu-ments are true, building community-level social capital may be a way formarginalized communities to circumvent the limitations created bysocioeconomic status and to become more politically engaged. What Iam calling for is the development of a social capital framework that takesmore seriously the role of social relations and the ways that race informscollective social organization in the United States. Such a frameworkneeds to contain three factors: (1) it must incorporate race as constitu-tive of American social and political life, not simply as an independentvariable; (2) it must take context seriously, in terms of community his-tory, current racial inequality, and opportunities for civic engagement;and (3) it must consider the role gatekeepers play in determining thepotential connections people can make. I discuss each in turn.

Race as Endogenous Rather than Exogenous

Smith points out the limitations of considering race as an independentvariable rather than as an explicitly political creation.33 The main prob-lem with the independent variable approach is that it makes race exoge-nous to the model. In other words, whatever movement or change iscaused by the race category occurs outside the model. In addition, wemust also consider what the race variable (most often measured as adummy) is actually measuring. All the dummy tells us is that a particu-lar respondent considers themselves part of that racial group. We haveno idea what level of identification, or “linked fate,” that individual haswith the larger group.34 We also have no idea what kinds of collectiveexperiences and feelings of social or group stigma are attached to thatidentification, both of which have been found to affect feelings of self-esteem and psychological well-being among members of marginalizedgroups.35 At the very least, considering the ways race has permeatedAmerican social, political, economic, and legal institutions, we need to



do a better job of incorporating the relational and social aspects of raceinto our analyses.

To do so, we need to develop better and more multifaceted measuresof collective identity. Social psychologists have been trying to developsuch a measure, one that does not focus on personal identity (as currentpolitical science measures do) but rather on people’s feelings of stigmaand attachment to their social group(s).36 One of the main problemswith these frameworks is that they often fail to incorporate an individ-ual’s attachment to multiple social groups (i.e., race and gender). Ideally,these indices could be adjusted to take that into account. These modelsare limited in that they still, to some extent, essentialize what aredynamic and fluid identifications; however, getting a better sense of howfeelings of “linked fate” affect attitudes and activities, particularly withinstigmatized communities, could be an important move toward develop-ing a better understanding of how race continues to affect Americancollective activity, even in the post-civil rights era.37 This should alsoallow us to begin to see how these feelings of stigma and group attach-ment affect the levels of activity, and kinds of organizations, individualschoose to engage in, thus deepening our understanding of the role thatrace and social stigma play in social capital development. At the veryleast, we could improve the way we conceptualize and measure thesekinds of questions.

Finally, this new framework would have to take seriously the long-term impact segregation has had on the development of American com-munities and social networks. Racially, American social networksremain highly homogenous. Martha Menchaca calls this phenomenon“social apartness”—the tendency for de facto segregation to exist evenafter de jure segregation ends.38 As social scientists we need to be awarethat this homogeneity within social networks can exist in an ostensiblyracially-integrated setting. Given that Putnam’s model of social capitaldirectly relates to feelings of social connectedness, it is important todevelop measures that explore racial integration within social networks.It is also important to take into consideration the role race plays in lev-els of social trust and in how people define the community for whichthey choose to act collectively.

The Role of Context

Most work on social capital in marginal communities focuses on theimpact that structural factors have on levels of civic engagement. Thesestructural factors affect the way in which racial communities can and do



participate in social capital-generating organizations. I would suggestthat a neighborhood’s racial and economic heterogeneity are key factorsfor deploying and analyzing social capital in marginal communities.

Recent work by Hero indicates that racial context is an important fac-tor when measuring levels of social capital. Hero finds a strong relation-ship among inequality, heterogeneity, and social capital. Studying Blackand White differences, both within states and across states, Hero findsthat ratios of civic engagement within states have an inverse relationshipwith race. He observes that more unequal and racially heterogeneouscommunities have less social capital, while more homogeneous commu-nities have more. Within states “civic equality (i.e., the ratio of Black toWhite registration and turnout) is lower in states with high aggregatelevels of capital . . . Social capital is associated with lower, not higher, rel-ative civic equality regarding race.”39 Comparing rates across the states,Hero notes that “(h)igher levels of social capital do not go along withhigh rates of Black voter registration across states . . . But social capital issignificantly related to White voter registration rates”40 (emphasis added).

The differences Hero finds between Black and White social capitalagain highlights the importance of race in our understanding of capital.The main point, according to Hero, is that “[s]ocial capital and civic cul-ture are negatively and substantially related to racial and ethnic diversityin the states.”41 So, as I argue, it seems that social capital is easier todevelop in racially homogenous communities. Thus, levels of racialhomogeneity and inequality need to be part of any social capital model.

In addition, structural factors have been found to have importanteffects on resources in particular neighborhood contexts. Portney andBerry believe “it is clear that a central issue in determining the public’sinvolvement in community life is how the opportunities to participateare structured.”42 For them, “the participation rates of low socioeco-nomic status (SES) residents in predominantly African American neigh-borhoods is almost twice that of low SES residents of low minoritypopulation neighborhoods.”43 Conversely, neighborhoods with lowminority populations show lower levels of participation in neighbor-hood associations and lower levels of community.

Similarly, Alex-Assensoh contends “the idea that social capital andcivic engagement are primarily the result of individual factors is belied bymounting and convincing evidence, which shows that structural factorsaffect engagement in civic and political life.”44 Her study measures theimpact that community context has on levels of social capital of bothBlacks and Whites in five Ohio cities. Focusing on the poverty density andthe racial composition of the neighborhoods in question, she finds that



“the neighborhood contexts in which black and white inner-city residentslive affect their opportunities to join organizations, interact socially, andparticipate actively in as well as discuss politics.”45 Interestingly, her studyfinds that community meeting attendance was actually higher in neigh-borhoods with high levels of poverty for both Blacks and Whites, whichsuggests “that residence in concentrated poverty neighborhoods can facil-itate social capital and civic engagement by spurring citizens to seek polit-ical redress for extant inequalities.”46

So again, structural factors are important but do not always movesocial capital levels in the expected direction. A social capital model thattakes seriously issues of structure and inequality would have to includea variety of contextual issues: racial and economic inequality, povertyrates, homeownership, unemployment, types of employment, level ofsegregation, and others. It would be especially helpful if such a modelcould also include some measures of community history, particularlylocal political organization and/or race relations. While this may seem atall order, new technologies using geographic mapping programs maymake the construction of the “topography” of social capital possible. Atthe very least, the social capital literature on marginal communitiesmakes it clear that structure matters—collective action does not occur inisolation so we need better ways of measuring that larger social context.

The Role of Gatekeepers

Chávez and Fraga point out the important role gatekeepers play in deter-mining who has access to the kinds of organizations that build socialcapital, in both majority and minority communities. EnhancingPutnam’s model, Chávez and Fraga “suggest that the social capital nexusis distinct for communities of color when compared to the general char-acterization offered by Putnam. When race and ethnicity are taken intoaccount, we argue that the development of social capital requires that therole of gatekeepers be specified” (emphasis in the original).47 They definegatekeepers as:

Gatekeepers are comprised of powerholders and their related institutionswho largely structure how, for example, frequency of interaction can leadto social trust, how social trust can translate into civic engagement, andespecially how civic engagement can translate into social capital.48

In their study of Latino attorneys in the state of Washington, they dis-cover “that the levels of social trust and civic engagement among Latino



attorneys are indeed comparable to those of non-Latino attorneys andeven surpass mainstream societal levels.”49 Compared to other Latinos,the authors discover “levels of civic engagement and trust [that] are farabove those of Latinos generally.”50 In addition to levels of social capital,Chávez and Fraga also note that “these Latino professionals engage incivic activities both in their ethnic communities and in their broadercommunities.”51 This is clearly an advantageous situation for buildingsocial capital. However, the authors conclude that “(d)espite all of theirresources, these professionals are still vulnerable to decisions made byimportant gatekeepers.”52

Much more work needs to be done that employs the concept of gate-keepers. While the term conjures images of an individual, I would sug-gest, as Chávez and Fraga do, that it represents a structural factor thatpromotes activity for some and inhibits activity for others. At what pointsof access are gatekeepers present? How does race, gender, or class affectwhen gatekeeping is instituted? What types of social capital implicate therole of gatekeepers? These are all questions that need to be answered andincorporated into our overall understanding of social capital.

Conclusion

I believe that social capital is a very useful and important concept thatcan help to deepen our understanding of civic engagement in the UnitedStates. However, as it is currently formulated Putnam’s social capitalmodel underemphasizes what the post-World War II generation repre-sents within the context of American history. Since World War II ournation has moved, for the first time in its history, toward a norm of fullsocial, economic, and political inclusion of people of color and women.I argue that this constitutes a significant break in American political cul-ture, one that we as a society have yet to mend. This break is the resultof the difficulty for Americans, particularly White Americans, to definetheir political community without using the trope of race. I contend thatrace and racial identity(ies) are constitutive of the structure and functionof social capital in the United States.

This enhancement of the social capital model is important because fewsocial science theories have garnered the attention, in both academic andpopular consciousness, as has Robert Putnam’s theory of social capital.Many large foundations have added social capital and civic engagementprograms to their funding priorities. Putnam himself has received largegrants to continue his social capital work. If Putnam is correct—that wehave a crisis of social capital in the United States—then it is crucial that



we accurately identify the causal mechanisms driving that problem. Ibelieve that the current formulation of the problem, with its lack ofattention to social relations in general and the central role race plays inthe structure and function of social capital, makes it unlikely that schol-ars will arrive at the appropriate solution. This would constitute a missedopportunity for us all.

Notes

1. R. D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

2. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of AmericanCommunity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).

3. See the following works: Portes 1998; S. Baron, J. Field, and T. Schuller(eds.), Social Capital: Critical Perspectives (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001); S. L. McLean, D. A. Schultz, and M. B. Steger (eds.), SocialCapital: Critical Perspectives on Community and “Bowling Alone” (New York:New York University Press, 2002); T. Skocpol, Diminished Democracy: FromMembership to Management in American Civic Life (University of OklahomaPress, 2003); T. Skocpol and M. Fiorina (eds.), Civic Engagement inAmerican Democracy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999).

4. M. Emirbayer, “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology,” American Journal ofSociology, 103 (199), 281–317.

5. Ibid.6. Ibid.7. M. Emirbayer, “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology,” American Journal of

Sociology, 103 (1997), 281–317.8. R. D. Putnam, “Tuning In, Tuning Out: the Strange Disappearance of Social

Capital in America,” PS: Political Science and Politics, 28 (1995), 664–683.9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.11. P. McLain, “Social Capital and Diversity: An Introduction,” Perspectives on

Politics, 1 (2003), 101–2.12. K. E. Portney and J. M. Berry, “Mobilizing Minority Communities: Social

Capital and Participation in Urban Neighborhoods,” American BehavioralScientist, 40 (1997), 632–644.

13. R. Hero, “Social Capital and Racial Inequality in America,” Perspectives onPolitics, 1 (2003), 113–22.

14. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of AmericanCommunity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).

15. Ibid.16. Ibid.17. M. Emirbayer, “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology,” American Journal of

Sociology, 103 (1997), 281–317.



18. R. M. Smith, Stories of Peoplehood: The Politics and Morals of GroupMembership (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

19. R. M. Smith, Civic Ideals: Competing Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).

20. G. Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profitfrom Identity Politics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).

21. See the following works: Knoke, 1990; Marsden, 1987; M. McPherson, L.Smith-Lovin, and J. M. Cook, “Birds of a Feather: Homophily in SocialNetworks,” Annual Review of Sociology, 27 (2001), 415–44.

22. D. Knoke, “Networks of Political Action: Toward Theory Construction,”Social Forces, 68 (1990), 1041–63.

23. P. Marsden, “Core Discussion Networks of Americans,” AmericanSociological Review, 52 (1987), 122–31.

24. See the following works: L. Bobo, J. R. Kluegel, and R. A. Smith, “Laissez-Faire Racism: The Crystallization of a Kinder, Gentler, Antiblack Ideology,”in Racial Attitudes in the 1990s: Continuity and Change, S. A. Tuch and J. K.Martin (eds.) (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997); D. P Green, D. Z. Strolovitch,and J. S. Wong, “Defended Neighborhoods, Integration, and Racially-Motivated Crime,” American Journal of Sociology, 104 (1998), 372–403; J.Sidanius, “The Psychology of Group Conflict and the Dynamics ofOppression: A Social Dominance Perspective,” in Explorations in PoliticalPsychology, S. Iyengar and W. G. McGuire (eds.) (Durham, NC: DukeUniversity Press, 1993).

25. P. A. Klinkner, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equalityin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

26. R. Takaki, A Different Mirror: A Multicultural History of America (Boston:Back Bay Books, 1993).


28. A. Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in ModernSociology,” Annual Review of Sociology, 24 (1998), 1–24.

29. M. Olsen, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory ofGroups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).

30. K. R. Monroe, The Heart of Altruism: Perceptions of a Common Humanity(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

31. F. Polletta and J. M. Jasper, “Collective Identity and Social Movements,”Annual Review of Sociology, 27 (2001), 283–305.

32. L. García Bedolla, Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in LosAngeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).


34. M. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

35. B. G. Link and J. C. Phelan, “Conceptualizing Stigma,” Annual Review ofSociology, 27 (2001), 363–85.



36. See the following works: R. Luhtanen and J. Crocker, “A Collective Self-Esteem Scale: Self-Evaluation of One’s Social Identity,” Personality and SocialPsychology Bulletin, 18 (1992), 302–18; F. Polletta and J. M. Jasper,“Collective Identity and Social Movements,” Annual Review of Sociology, 27(2001), 283–305.

37. M. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

38. M. Menchaca, The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History ofMarginalization and Discrimination in California (Austin: University ofTexas Press, 1995).

39. R. Hero, “Social Capital and Racial Inequality in America,” Perspectives onPolitics, 1 (2003), 114.

40. Ibid., p. 115.41. Ibid., p. 120.42. K. E. Portney and J. M. Berry, “Mobilizing Minority Communities: Social

Capital and Participation in Urban Neighborhoods,” American BehavioralScientist, 40 (1997), 632.

43. Ibid., p. 637.44. Y. M. Alex-Assensoh, Neighborhood, Family, and Political Behavior in Urban

America (Garland Press: New York, 1998), 203.45. Ibid., 206.46. Ibid., 215.47. M. Chávez and L. R. Fraga, “Social Trust, Civic Engagement and Social

Mobility,” Paper presented at the annual conference of the Western PoliticalScience Association, Denver, CO (2003), 2.

48. Ibid.49. Ibid., 3.50. Ibid., 3.51. Ibid., 3.52. Ibid. 3.



Chapter 2

Old Whines in New Bottles: Robert Putnam,Richard Florida, and the

“Community” Problem inContemporary America

Daniel J. Monti, Jr.

Americans worry about how much “community” they have left,what kinds of community we ought to be making, and where we

are most likely to find good examples of community life. These con-cerns are not new. They were first expressed in a serious way by nine-teenth-century European and American writers and reformers whowere trying to make sense of all the changes occasioned by wide-scaleindustrialization and city building. These same questions have receivedrenewed attention in recent years from a variety of left- and right-lean-ing intellectuals who are convinced that some big changes are takingplace in American’s civic habits.

Some persons think that American civic life is deteriorating. RobertD. Putnam and Theda Skocpol, to cite two notable examples, thinkthat Americans aren’t joining enough groups, or the right groups, any-more, and we don’t socialize as much as we used to. We may find self-help groups to join or do a little more volunteering or send money toorganizations whose goals are to influence federal officials. Still, thelittle pieces of loyalty and money that we pledge do not get as much


important civic homework done as older style organizations and home-spun grass roots groups did. Our democracy is diminished.

Other observers, like Richard Florida and Robert Wuthnow, believethat new kinds of sociability and civic mindedness are replacing moretraditional ways that Americans use to get along and work together.People may not be hanging out with each other as much as they used toor they may be joining fewer organizations. On the other hand, that’sonly because our modern economy needs more footloose persons andfewer bowling teams, lodges, and local activists constantly on the prowlto find new members and training a small army of citizen soldiers tomind our collective business.

Not everyone is so glum about the state of American civic habits. Afew social scientists (this author among them) have looked at the sameinformation and come up with a different conclusion. They declare thatthe changes aren’t as big as people like Putnam and Florida make themout to be, or that Americans seem to be adjusting to them pretty well. Inthis paper, we are not concerned with whether these researchers are rightabout where American’s social ties and civic habits are headed. Ofgreater interest here is the way that Robert Putnam and Richard Florida,two of the more prominent members of civic doomsday and renaissanceclubs, package their ideas and numbers. For better or worse, their workhas become the touchstone that the rest of us use to convince each otherthat American civic habits are changing for the worse or for the better.

From our standpoint, ideas about the viability and persistence ofcommunity life in American society have remained important becausewe are such a mobile and diverse people. We worry about our commu-nities being filled with so many different kinds of persons, and we workhard (or not) to draw more of them together. Whether you end up tak-ing Putnam’s or Florida’s side in this argument, most informed observersare pessimistic about the prospect of keeping our communities the waythey used to be and about passing on our culture to our children.

One can tie the work of people like Putnam and Florida to a muchlonger tradition in which people fret about city life and its deleteriouseffects on the way we get along and work together. Richard Florida andMelinda Milligan have recently made this connection a bit more explicitby drawing parallels between Florida’s ideas and Putnam’s and tyingthem to more classic sociological arguments about community life.Here we take this idea one step further (or perhaps backward). Weargue that the rhetorical case social scientists make about American’ssocial ties and civic customs is based on evidence that is not only weakbut also manipulated so that it looks a lot stronger than it really is. Our



bottom line is this: the research done by Putnam and Florida is funda-mentally overblown and misleading. Those of us who have taken uptheir challenge to talk about the past and future of community life inAmerica are chewing on ideas that have been around a long time and arebased on less than convincing evidence.

Richard Florida and the Glories of Gesellschaft

Florida’s basic take on the world is that today in the United States wehave a “creative economy” built around information, computers, andtechnological wizardry. This economy thrives on people who are part ofa “creative class” composed of highly trained, tolerant, and creative indi-viduals. Professor Florida says that places like Boston or San Franciscohave grown fat on the new creative economy and have more of thesefolks. Places with fewer of them, he asserts, have done much less well inthe creative economy derby. And, places that want to be the next Bostonor San Francisco would be wise to get more creative, tolerant, anddiverse kinds of persons to move in with them.

The kinds of “different” people that he has in mind are homosexuals,immigrants, and artistic folks. He measures the openness of a place tocreative folks on the basis of how many gays have already settled there(his “gay index”), how many foreigners have been taken in (his “meltingpot index”), and how many artsy types are residents (his “bohemianindex”). It’s a clever way to set up his argument. In this regard, RichardFlorida’s research on the emergence of something he calls the “creativeclass” is particularly noteworthy. Where he got the information he uses,mostly archival data sources like the census, is fine. On the other hand,by Florida’s own admission, one couldn’t check, for instance, how he’dacquired the number of homosexuals living in the places he studied.

He doesn’t show much of the original data that he worked with inorder to come up with the way he graded the places he studied. He justconverts whatever counts and percentages he has to a simple rankingsystem and reports those figures. This lets him say that one place hadmore or less of whatever was being measured, in this case the amount ofcreative, tolerant, or gay persons. At the same time, it doesn’t tell you byhow much.

Now there are times when that’s the best you can do, as on surveyswhen people say they prefer one thing, such as an apple, more or lessthan some other thing, like a pear. But in this case, Florida presumablyhad the original counts and percentages upon which the rankings werebased and could have provided us with more information. I know that

OLD WHINES IN NEW BOTTLES 23


may sound picky but it really isn’t. If somebody says that one thing is big-ger or better than something else, which Florida says a lot, he may beright. But unless you’re able to see how he came to that judgment, andconverting hard numbers into softer rankings makes that impossible,you’re essentially flying blind. You have to take the word of the scientistthat he knows what he’s talking about and didn’t cook the books, so tospeak, just so the picture came out looking like he wanted it to.

According to Professor Florida, places that do well in this new-fan-gled creative economy of ours have a lot more going for them than thenationality, color, or sexual preference of their residents. When lots ofbohemians, gays, and immigrants live in your town, he says, you knowthere’s something fundamentally right with your city’s culture. It showsup in the way you treat people who are different from the ones you knowand like best. The presence of many different kinds of persons is an out-ward sign that the values you hold and the habits you and your neigh-bors practice welcome diversity.

This diversity doesn’t show up just in the people who live there, butin ideas too. That’s how Professor Florida makes the connection betweenthe kinds of persons who live in a place and the creative technology andprosperity they bring to the place by virtue of being so creative. Havingdifferent people around, it is argued, breeds a sense of tolerance intopeople—tolerance not only for those you hug but for innovative thinkersand doers as well. For a community to be successful today, apparently, ithas to welcome diversity, be sensitive to people’s differences (in a posi-tive way), and work hard at being flexible and innovative. Sharing, toler-ance, and being able to do one’s own thing are in. Exclusivity, stuffiness,and minding your neighbor’s business are out—or so Professor Floridawould have us think.

Communities that are hot are filled with smart, footloose, edgy inno-vator types who push the economy and everyone around them into newways of thinking and acting, kind of like what Richard Florida tries todo. The social ties that successful and creative people like this have arelooser. We are not too attached to other people. And it is this airydetachment that lets us be more freethinking in order to help our com-munity do better in the high-tech world that thrives on everything newand different. Again, we know this because Professor Florida has num-bers to back up all the stories he likes to tell about creative people, entre-preneurs, and the new economy. In truth, the numbers Florida tossesaround to make his stories more believable are not much different fromthe numbers that most social scientists use. They are counts of personswith particular traits like their color, gender, and income.



There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about Florida’s numbers. Thedifference comes in the way we package and make sense of them.Florida’s “creative class” doesn’t blossom or become real to us until heconnects the dots represented by all the numbers he lays out in his book.If people like Richard Florida only wanted to describe how many indi-viduals of one sort or another lived in a particular place, no one wouldthink a thing of it. But we want to do more than paint a picture of thetypes of persons who live in a place like Boston. We want to use thesecounts to tell the story of the lives of the folks being counted. We wantto say something important not just about who they are but about theway they live together and what matters to them.

That’s a much bigger deal. It’s also a lot harder than you might thinkto connect the dots between the different types of persons who live some-place so that you can say something that is interesting and defensibleabout their way of life. The problem is this: Florida hasn’t talked to a crosssection of the people that live in all the places he studied, something thatno one could do, and he doesn’t have lots of documentary evidencerevealing how they talk about themselves. So he’s left to connect the dotshimself and to color in all the spaces inside the lines he draws. Floridamakes up the story and chooses the crayons that will make it colorful.

Robert Putnam and the Decline of Gemeinschaft

The same criticism can be leveled at Putnam, whose exhaustive researchon Americans’ civic habits has set off a great debate about the future ofcommunity life in this country. Everything that Putnam looked at andtook as a sign of our civic health—voting, organizational memberships,informal socializing, volunteering, altruism, trust, and reciprocity—tellshim that we are worse off today than we were a couple of generations ago.He wants us to look backward to a time when people were closer both interms of their attachment to each other and to the places where they liveand work. Mind you, I didn’t say that some of the evidence Putnam hasbacks up his story about civic disengagement, or that even most of it does.I said that everything he looks at tells him that we are in big trouble.Professor Putnam apparently has a knack for finding bad news or havingit find him. The result in either case is the same. He believes that we arenot in good shape and getting worse fast, probably just as much as RichardFlorida believes we are getting more creative, tolerant, and productive.

At the risk of oversimplifying what is a long and detailed argument,Putnam says that something dramatic and bad happened to America inthe late 1960s and early 1970s:



[A] variety of social, economic, and technological changes . . . renderedobsolete a significant stock of America’s social capital. Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values—theseand other changes in American society have meant that fewer and fewerof us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or theShriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friendsfits the way we have come to live. Our growing social-capital deficitthreatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax col-lection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our healthand happiness.1

Putnam also says, however, that we’ve faced this kind of situation beforeand shouldn’t panic quite yet. The last time our stock of social capitalwas this low was the turn of the last century, and Putnam says we cameout of that trough pretty well. Back then we were at the height of our ownindustrial revolution. It was the last great technological leap forwardbefore the hi-tech wizardry and information age that fueled Florida’s“creative class” was launched after 1950.

Again, back at the top of the twentieth century we were inundated byforeign immigrants on our East Coast from all over Southern and EasternEurope and on the other side of our country from parts of China andJapan. We also saw an incredible outpouring of art, literature, music, andother forms of mass entertainment that may or may not have includedteam bowling. These changes may have disrupted our lives and mademore of us think that satisfying ourselves was the most important thingwe could do. However, Putnam says this also was a time when many ofour fellow countrymen made many serious and creative attempts to fig-ure out how to keep us from spinning off into our own private universes.We made new organizations and worked really hard to bring more peo-ple into the fold and keep the rest of us already in it from leaving.

The organizing and activism came not just in politics but in countlessother arenas where human beings figured out that they had an interestin each other’s affairs. In big ways and small ways, Americans exercisedthe genius for making “associations” that the great French chronicler ofthe American scene, Alexis de Tocqueville, first described in the 1830s.It was a genuine civic renaissance, and bowling leagues no less than largenational organizations were definitely part of that scene. Putnam saysthat we need to do something like this again, re-start a civic revival.

When he first said this in the mid-1990s a lot of persons listened.Almost single-handedly, Professor Putnam rekindled a debate over thesize, breadth, and vitality of American civic attentiveness, how well-connected we are to each other and how much we still trust each other.



We should thank him for that. At the same time, the sheer weight of hisargument, with the overwhelming amount of evidence that he amassedto make his point that sociability and civic mindedness in Americawere sinking fast, made for a powerful indictment of our civic habitsand values. I’m not nearly so grateful for that, particularly since I thinkhe was wrong.

Comparing the Way that Florida and Putnam Make Their Cases

Comparing how Florida and Putnam use the numbers they assembled isinstructive. What Florida does in his book is create columns with thenames of “regions” that are named after the city at their center. The firstcolumn has these regions lined up according to how much technologythey have, with the more technologically-rich regions at the top and thepoorer regions at the bottom. Then he makes another column of thesesame places only this time the order they’re in corresponds to, say, howmany creative people each one has. Then he compares the two columns.He follows essentially the same procedure for each of the variables hecares about.

What he wants to see when he steps back is that all the columns lineup in the same way. The places having more technology and more cre-ative, tolerant, and diverse populations he hopes to see at the top of eachlist, and the places with much less technology or fewer special people heexpects to show up at the bottom. It isn’t surprising that Florida findsexactly that when he lined up all the numbers in his tables. Places withmore technology had more creative people, more immigrants, better-educated people, and more homosexuals. Places with less technologyhad fewer of these same people.

The problem is that Florida never tells us everything we need to knowabout the people that live in the places he studied. There’s simply no wayfor you to determine why things line up the way he says they do. Younever get to see how many tolerant or diverse people live in a given placeor what percentage of a particular place’s population is tolerant ordiverse. All you get are these rankings or grades that allow him to saythat one place is better than another place. You don’t get so much as aglimpse of how many more (or fewer) desirable people each place has.Even the rankings for particular regions seem to change from one tableto another without so much as a hint as to why.

The problem with his rankings is compounded by the way he inter-prets them. When he does show you the percentage of creative personseach region has, for instance, there’s not that much difference between



the places he’s comparing. Every region that Florida studied, and therewere 268 of them including Boston and San Francisco, has a lot of “cre-ative” people. In fact, the only regions that don’t have at least twenty per-cent of their people falling into that category are Las Vegas and thirteenother places most of us probably have never been.2 At the other end ofthe scale are two places, the only two (so far as I’ve been able to tell) thathave more than twenty percent of their people who fall within whatProfessor Florida calls the “Super Creative Core” of the “creative class.”These are Gainesville, Florida and Bryan, Texas.

Now, I’ve never been to Lubbock or Laredo, Texas, which are a bitthin in the creative persons department, or Bryan, Texas, either, for thatmatter, which does very well on that score. I’m sure they’re all nice placesand the folks who live there are lovely. But the whole Holy RomanEmpire probably didn’t have as many creative people as these places do.By his own accounting scheme, “roughly 30 percent of the entire U.S.workforce” is now part of the “creative class.”3 Unfortunately, places likeLubbock and Laredo are no better than also-rans in America’s creativeculture competition. So what are we really talking about here?

Well, other than the fact that the nation is lousy with creative peopleand that there’s not a whole lot of ground separating places with a lot ofcreative people from those places with fewer of them, probably notmuch. We have only Professor Florida’s word that these small differencescount for a whole lot. The rankings, so far as I can tell, certainly don’tshow that regions blessed with the most technology have the most cre-ative people or really score higher in the competition for homosexualsand bohemians, if such things even matter at all. Some places with highrankings in technology have relatively mediocre and even poor rankingsin creative, tolerant, or artsy people. While other places that don’t lookso hot in terms of being on the technological cutting edge rate prettyhigh in creativity, tolerance, or diversity.

Professor Florida could have settled this matter quite simply had hecalculated statistics for all the tables his “research team” produced andreported more than a few in one or two footnotes buried in the back ofthe book. That would have shown how closely the technology rankingscorresponded to the rankings of gays, immigrants, and bohemian types.But he didn’t do that and I don’t think it’s because he’s lazy. I suspect itwas because the correlations between creativity, tolerance, or trainingand technological wizardry were modest at best. In other words, hemade a big deal out of some pretty small differences among the places hestudied. What we are left with, if we overlook the important tables wherehe lists the rankings of only the ten highest- and ten lowest-scoring



regions, a pretty slick move, is the sinking feeling that getting a higher orlower ranking probably doesn’t matter a whole lot.

It would be nice if we could say that places with more technology havehigher percentages of tolerant and artsy people living there. But we can’tsay that either, because, as I already noted, Professor Florida doesn’t giveus those numbers. Based on what we know from the percentages of per-sons in his “creative class,” places with more tolerant and diverse folksprobably don’t have that many more of them than do places that have alower ranking on Florida’s report card. It is more likely that every placehe studied probably has a good share of bohemian and tolerant typeshanging around. All we can say with any confidence is that Boston maybe a little or a lot less creative, tolerant, and bohemian than SanFrancisco, or even Yakima, Washington for all the good that it probablydoes the people that live there. Whatever is going on in Boston that putsus higher on Florida’s list of good places to live probably doesn’t affectthe daily lives of the people who reside there.

So, assuming that Florida played around with his numbers, is thereanything he says that can be taken seriously? I think there is. Indeed, Ibelieve that what Florida says is not only interesting, in a particular way,but also rather important. However, in spite of the claim, he did not dis-cover something brand new. People have been talking for decades aboutthe rise of a “post-industrial economy” and the professional, technical,and modern service industries that drive it. The same thing goes for allthe highly-trained persons that Florida puts in his fictional “creativeclass.” That class may be bigger today than it used to be, especially if youdefine and measure it as broadly as he does. But it’s not new; and placeslike Boston and San Francisco don’t have anything close to a monopoly oncreativity, tolerance, and diversity. Florida’s own data make that apparent.

Florida’s story has actually been around for over two thousand years.The Greeks own it. They apparently were the first people who worriedabout what it would take to make their own cities into places where per-sons from different cultures and walks of life could live, work, and prac-tice the art of politics. They also had the good sense to write it down. Sothat’s why they always get credit for coming up with these ideas. All thatRichard Florida has done, and it’s not a small thing, is to give the Genesisstory a couple of nice contemporary twists by bringing gays, new immi-grants, and self-revering yuppies into it.

The other important thing about his story is that it is one half of themorality tale that people have been telling each other about cities longbefore they became as creative, tolerant, and diverse as Florida says theyare today. The other half, as you may have guessed by now, is a variation



on the story Professor Putnam tells about the decline of civic life inAmerica. Putnam’s story is actually the flip side of Florida’s. It’s all aboutdecay and loss and the rejection of time-honored customs, codes, andbeliefs. The story Putnam spins is important because it tells us whatwe’re supposedly losing when we have too much change way tooquickly, changes of the sort that Florida celebrates and contemporaryBoston reflects. Putnam isn’t against progress or prosperity. He justbelieves that in order to be prosperous a community has to keep its civicaccounting book every bit as balanced as its business ledger. Putnam’sstory is the story of what happens when things get too out of whack andpeople forget who they are while they rush headlong to become some-body new and better.

But that’s not all. Just like Florida’s tale, Putnam’s story is also a fableabout the places called cities where all of these changes happen biggerand first. Again, the problem isn’t that stuff changes. It’s that everythingchanges seemingly at once and in such unfathomable confusion that ourbrains fry, our spirits wilt, and we retreat to the couch and the illusion ofcontrol afforded by the channel changer. Basically, in Putnam’s scheme,cities are places where persons from many different backgrounds andsocial stations find it difficult to build strong ties and trust each other.The folks who live and work there are less able to draw themselvestogether in meaningful face-to-face associations. They also lack a com-mon culture that would show them how to make such contacts, even ifthey thought that it was necessary or a good idea, which they probablyno longer believe is the case. In any event, whatever dealings they havewith each other would be conducted through much larger and much lessintimate organizations—the institutional beasts we call “bureaucracies.”

Mind you, these are some of the very features of modern society thatRichard Florida claims are the birthright and legacy of his “creativeclass.” But for Putnam, and many other thinkers and reformers goingback many generations, the kind of changes that make us too free andless responsible to each other are a kind of poison that shuts humanbeings down in bits and pieces. Many of our long-term personal rela-tionships and the local groups we once joined become irrelevant and,from Florida’s point of view, maybe even counterproductive. They get inthe way of progress and even more prosperity by turning our creativejuices into a late-autumn sap.

The problem for folks like Putnam, and the blessing for people likeFlorida, is that a culture once considered, albeit erroneously, to be anexclusive feature of life in big cities has now spread all over the country.No place is immune. The liberating and the corrosive effects of a modern



and distinctly urban way of life are part of everyone’s life today. That’swhy Florida can think it is fine to use the name of a city as a stand-in fora whole metropolitan area or “region.” It’s also the reason why Putnamand most other social commentators speak of a widespread decline inthe civic habits of all Americans. They don’t worry very much about howdifferent kinds of Americans practice being sociable or work at makingmore and better associations to mind their own civic business. As far asPutnam and others of his ilk are concerned, we’re all in the same leakyboat now and sinking fast.

The widely-perceived erosion of sociability and civic mindedness inAmerica is only the most recent expression of our fear about the corrupt-ing effects of city life. (The Greeks were worried about that too.) In thepast it simply was assumed that people who lived in cities did a poorerjob hooking up with each other. We didn’t know if this happened becausethe people who moved to cities had badness hiding in them or whetherthere was something about cities that made otherwise good and sanepeople go bad. The effect in either case was the same. People were notexpected to get along as well in cities as they did in other kinds of places.

The fact is that most people who live and work in cities enjoy satisfy-ing social lives. They have friends, neighbors, and relatives with whomthey keep in touch. They get along well enough to make it through theaverage day with virtually all of the folks they come into contact with. Ifthey didn’t, we’d have a lot more carnage on the streets and more of uswould turn up missing. Sometimes city dwellers do a little better thannon-city folk in this regard, and sometimes they do a bit worse. Most ofthem, however, are anything but anonymous. As many social scientistshave shown, people are not cut adrift in a big scary city or unhingedfootloose yuppies happy to be left alone.

Putnam and Florida both miss this essential point. They both needmore people to be lost or at least cut loose, albeit for different reasons, ifanybody is going to believe their stories for more than a couple of min-utes. So far they’ve both done a lot better than that. And the reason why,I think, is that they have so much evidence that unfailingly points in thedirection that each of them wants us to look. The fact that they are look-ing in completely opposite directions should tell us something about therelation between numbers and storytelling in the social sciences.

Not everyone has rushed to Putnam’s defense. Indeed, several socialscientists and non-academic commentators were openly skeptical aboutPutnam’s research findings fairly early on, even as many others coun-tered that the sheer bulk and magnitude of Putnam’s work made thesecriticisms trivial.



Putnam had already offered the same defense of his work thatFlorida makes:

By virtually every conceivable measure, social capital has eroded steadilyand sometimes dramatically over the past two generations. The quantita-tive evidence is overwhelming, yet most Americans did not need to seecharts and graphs to know that something bad has been happening intheir communities and in their country. Americans have had a growingsense at some visceral level of disintegrating social bond.4

Putnam believes that his story goes beyond the numbers he painstak-ingly laid out in the nearly three hundred pages that preceded this com-ment on his own work. The only thing his number crunching hadaccomplished, apparently, was to provide scientific support for whatmost Americans already knew was true. Our stock of social capital wasdecreasing quickly. Americans didn’t get along or trust each other asmuch as they once did. Putnam’s critics never said he cooked his num-bers so that the results came out the way he wanted. What they did say,however, was that Putnam ignored evidence that contradicted his find-ings. In effect, our social capital savings account wasn’t nearly as emptyas Putnam said it was.

By now we should all know that ignoring evidence that might makeyour findings look less impressive is a no-no in science. Had Putnamthrown his critics a couple of bones and conceded that the picture ofsociability and civic mindedness he found wasn’t as grim as the story hewanted to tell, they would have been left snapping at the air. Instead, thenearly perfect layout of an oncoming civic train wreck was simply toomuch for some in the scientific fraternity to swallow. Some of these crit-ics went so far as to find information about the ways Americans volun-teer, donate, and join that Putnam overlooked. His critics discoveredanother problem once they turned their attention from what Putnamhad ignored to what he had done with the information he did show us,which, for the record, was a lot more than Florida ever shared. Whenthey went back to the same big surveys that Putnam used in his bookthey found that the changes he described, most of which showed peoplebecoming less sociable and civic minded, weren’t as big as he had madethem out to be.

Americans were doing less engaging and participating, just asPutnam said. But the decreases weren’t as dramatic as he made themsound. There also were instances when at least some people were doinga little more socializing and working together than Putnam had sug-gested. What it all adds up to is that Putnam made a big deal out of some



pretty modest changes in the way Americans treated each other andjoined together as members of different kinds of groups. Just likeFlorida, the picture he drew with his words was stronger than it shouldhave been. Having said that, lots of people, some of them rather moreimportant than you or me, still liked the way he connected the dots forthem. They were drawn to the bright colors Putnam used to fill in all theempty spaces in their heads.

Putnam, like Florida, could have avoided making this kind of mistakeand mess. All he would have had to do was present statistics that tell usexactly how big and precipitous the changes he described were. But, likeFlorida, Putnam either chose not to conduct such analyses or, havingconducted these kinds of tests, he chose not to talk about them in hisbook. What we do know is that the story he told was incredibly com-pelling. It just wasn’t as credible a story as he made it out to be. We knowthis because we can go back to the numbers he used and see where histrain left the track. Why Putnam didn’t do more with his numbers actu-ally matters a lot. That’s the most important lesson to be learned fromrecreating as many of the graphs and charts that Putnam had in his bookfrom data he has made available on a Web page. Assuming that no bigmistakes were made when redoing his tables, what one finds is prettyinteresting. For instance, people were entertaining less at home and play-ing cards less often, spending more time with video games or visiting acasino, and going out to the movies just about as much as they used to.

All this Putnam said in his book; and our analysis of his data con-firmed what he said. Furthermore, the changes he described were statis-tically significant. That is to say, they probably weren’t due to chance orsome kink in the way people were asked or answered the survey ques-tions. At the same time, the way he portrayed these changes in the bookmade it look as if they were bigger than they really were. None of thefindings was especially strong. The statistic, tau-c, varies between –1.0and +1.0. For instance, if the answers people gave showed that they spentless time today with friends than they did in the past, then the statisticwould have been closer to –1.0, down at the negative end of the scale. Ifthey were doing more of something today, then the statistic would havebeen closer to +1.0. That is, it would be higher up at the positive end ofthe scale.

The same result pops up when one re-analyzes Putnam’s findings forother variables he examined. Among them were activities that he saysAmericans do by themselves, like going for a walk, attending an exerciseclass, and going to a health club. Those all went up too, as did volunteer-ing, another activity Putnam characterized as being more personally



enriching than a benefit to the community. On the other hand, he foundthat Americans worked on fewer community projects in the 1990s thanthey had in the mid-1970s. Again, while all these changes were statisti-cally significant, they were still very small.5

It’s not hard to figure out where Putnam was going with all of this.Basically, he wanted to show that Americans were spending moretime alone or working on themselves instead of joining other peopleto do something worthwhile or to enjoy each other’s company. Thedata he presented certainly allowed him to say that was happening.The only problem was that Putnam made it seem as though manymore people were acting this way than was actually the case. That’swhy the tau-c statistics all fell below the plus or minus .20 thresholds.The changes were statistically significant but not so large that most ofus probably would have had our lives affected dramatically by thechanges Putnam described.

Putnam’s data indicated that folks who attended more club meetingsand church services were more likely to donate blood.6 A real surprisecame when one goes back and looks at all the data on church going andblood donating and finds that a rather crucial piece of the puzzle hasbeen left out of the graph presented in Putnam’s book. Men and womenwho go to church more than twenty-five times a year donate bloodmore often than a lot of people do. It turns out, however, that personswho never go to church services donate blood almost as often as the bet-ter churchgoers do. It’s the folks in the middle, the ones who attendservices between one and twenty-four times a year, who are the worst atgiving blood.

Putnam left the non-churchgoers out of his graph. He kept themediocre churchgoers and really good churchgoers in the graph. Thatmade it possible for him to argue that church attendance and blooddonating were positively associated. People who go to church more oftenalso donate blood more often. Except that’s not how it really works. It’snot at all clear why non-churchgoers would donate blood almost as oftenas good churchgoing types. It’s also a mystery as to why people who goto church one or two times a month donate blood less often than eitherthe devout or the damned. What we do know is that this rather interest-ing finding was not reported in the book and that by not reporting itPutnam was able to put another check on his side of the scientific ledger.Of course, the object in putting a scientific puzzle together is to findpieces that fit. The rulebook is very clear, however, about not throwingaway pieces that don’t fit, and takes a dim view of cutting bits off so thatthey will, which is pretty much what Putnam did in this case.



Making Sense of Putnam and Florida’s Disagreement

Putnam was right that there has been a real, though not especially big,dropoff in some kinds of socializing and civic participation. He’s alsoright when he says that it probably would be a good idea if more of usdid more together, particularly if what we are doing benefits other per-sons and not just ourselves. What we are saying is that Putnam, likeFlorida, was so certain of the validity and power of the story he wantedto tell about American social habits that he didn’t see or didn’t care thatthe numbers and consequent story don’t add up.

What they’re really arguing about is something that Alexis deTocqueville first brought to our attention in Democracy in America, hislandmark study of nineteenth-century American morals and habits. AsHenry Steele Commager has observed, Tocqueville made the strugglebetween liberty and equality the centerpiece of his treatise. Tocquevilleasserted, in so many words, that American democracy might well end upchewing off its own leg. He probably thought this for some of the samereasons historian David McCullough tells us that early Americanprophets like John Adams had argued that competing bases of powerand obligation had to be built into our federal government.7 We had tomake ways to balance the interests of the few with the needs of the manyso that men’s appetites might not too often extend to their neighbors.

Precisely how we would end up managing the tension between libertyand equality by balancing our individualism with a healthy dose ofworking together was anyone’s guess. But that was the key questionAmericans set themselves up to address in the eighteenth century. Today,right at the top of the twenty-first century, we still find ourselves work-ing the kinks out of our answer. Professors Putnam and Florida proba-bly don’t realize it, but they’re playing with the same ideas and wrestlingwith the same problem that concerned men like Adams and Tocquevilleand, a bit later, Ferdinand Tonnies. That’s why Putnam and Florida canlook at the United States today and come up with entirely different pic-tures about what is right or wrong with the way Americans live together.One declares that we need to take better care of each other, while theother hollers just as loudly that we need to leave each other alone so thateach of us can realize the full measure of his talents.

Might Putnam privilege equality over liberty? Maybe he wouldn’t usethose words, but that’s the idea he’s pushing when he argues that we needto look out for each other more and learn how to work together better.Florida, on the other hand, would push against the walls we put aroundliberty right up to and probably beyond the point where they groaned



and cracked. He’s for people being allowed to follow their own dreams,believing that in the end we’ll be better off for it. Putnam, of course,wouldn’t be so sure about that last part.

Putnam and Florida do have different views about where the bestplace is to build a better America and American. Putnam likes smallponds, while Florida would prefer that we all swim in much larger bod-ies of water. Notwithstanding their apparent conflict on this and mostother matters, Putnam and Florida really see the world in much the sameway. It’s just that one of them likes the direction he sees us moving andthe other one doesn’t. Given where he lives and works, it’s hard to imag-ine that Robert Putnam has a grudge against cities. On the other hand,there’s an awful lot in his book that makes one think he would findsmaller places where people know each other better to be more congen-ial sites for raising families and investing money.

Richard Florida, on the other hand, believes that places with lots ofdifferent people in them are better. And although Florida’s a big fan ofsmall places that act like big cities, even he would find it hard to argueagainst the idea that bigger cities are going to have more of the kinds ofpeople he thinks make a place prosperous and show that its people arecreative. Therein lies the secret to Putnam and Florida’s stories aboutwhat’s happened to American social habits and civic virtues in the yearssince Adams and Tocqueville. They’re all worried about how we canmake more and make nice at the same time. They’re also fiddling withthe key to a couple of thousand years’ worth of social commentary andphilosophizing about what it takes to make a good community.

Basically, on one side of the fence you’ve got a bunch of people whothink that small towns and the way of life made there are ideal. On theother side of the fence, there’s a much smaller, but equally committed,collection of persons who think cities offer the best chance for individu-als and society as a whole to do better. The problem, of course, is that nomatter which of these places you think is better we live in a country thathas a lot more people in urban areas than rural ones. No matter how elsethey might disagree, Professors Putnam and Florida are together when itcomes to their view that Americans are working from the same culturalscript. So is there anything in that script today about how we’re supposedto juggle liberty and equality? And can it tell us about the way people livein cities? Well yes and quite a bit, actually.

Digging deeper into the same large surveys of American attitudes andhabits that Putnam and many of our colleagues across the country havebeen looking at for over a quarter of a century, my collaborators and Ihave made the following observations: More recent generations of



Americans aren’t much less sociable or civic minded than earlier genera-tions, and whether you live in big cities or smaller towns doesn’t seem tomake much difference, either. American social habits may be changing,but they’ve been changing for a while, changing slowly, and changing allover the place. Whatever is happening hasn’t happened so quickly ordelivered such a big shock that we can’t handle it. I don’t know what thecultural equivalent of a car’s gearbox would be, but whatever it is wehaven’t come close to stripping it. We can all relax. We’re not likely todrive over a cliff any time soon.

How we act in our private lives doesn’t necessarily affect the way we actin public. Some people today visit their relatives and neighbors less oftenthan they did in the past but they see friends living outside their imme-diate neighborhood more often. How regularly we visit other people,however, doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the kinds of groups wejoin. Some people are good joiners and visitors. Some of us don’t domuch of either. But there are a lot of folks who do more visiting thanjoining, or more joining than visiting. More importantly, the number ofpersons opting to go one way or the other appears to be increasing. Moreof us have busy lives today and we can’t be everywhere at once. We’re notbeing unsociable. We’re just being a bit more selective in how we use thetime we have away from work.

Not only are more of us opting to be better social butterflies or bettergroupies but the criteria we use to choose our friends are different fromthe ones we use to choose the folks we like to work with outside theworkplace. It turns out that we have become a bit more discriminating inour private lives even as our public or civic attachments have become a lit-tle more open and inclusive. Basically, the folks we like to hang out withare increasingly more like us, while the people we associate with in thegroups we join are not. What color we are, the amount of schooling wehave had, whether we are a man or a woman, young or old, hold a pres-tigious job (or not), and have moved up or down in the world still pushesus into certain kinds of relationships and groups. Over the last quartercentury, however, these differences have become at least a little moreimportant in our personal lives and a little less important in the way wejoin many kinds of groups.

If there is a thread that runs through these observations, it is this: agreat many Americans still have fine relationships with other persons.No small portion of those relationships are probably with persons whocome from a different race, the other gender, are older or younger thanwe are, more or less well educated, and have a job that is better or worsethan our own. On the other hand, an equally large number of us still



belong to groups that are pretty strict about whom they let in as mem-bers. Compared to even two decades ago, however, it is clear that thepeople we socialize with informally are likely to have more in commonwith us than the folks we meet and work with in groups we join. Here wehave the making of an explanation for why so many thoughtful personshave been fretting about the state of our civic attachments and worryingabout whether we can trust anybody anymore. Americans’ civic lives arechanging. The change isn’t hard to describe. Simply put, fewer peoplelike you and me show up in voluntary organizations these days, andmore people who aren’t like us seem to be popping up in all kinds ofcivic places we don’t expect to see them.

The way different types of Americans are ending up in the same kindsof organizations at the same time they stick to “their own kind” when itcomes to whom they like to hang out with is particularly striking. Menand women, Black people and White people, younger and older folks,more- and less-educated individuals, and persons with better jobs or notsuch great jobs tend to have different social lives. When it comes todoing the hard work of making associations and putting those groups towork on minding their community’s business, they are taking their cuesfrom the same cultural script. I can’t see how this is anything but a goodthing. It’s just another way we’ve figured out how to be different andalike at the same time.

If fewer of us are reading that script today or trying out for parts inour great civic epic, as Putnam has shown us, that’s too bad. But it’s notthe end of the world either. Clearly, some of us are less involved todaythan we were even a couple of decades ago. Sometimes we are the kindof persons Americans call “minorities” or we don’t have much formaleducation or our job isn’t the greatest. Those among us who are not suchgreat joiners and visitors, however, are just as likely to come from theranks of more privileged or accomplished Americans. This is a problemfor persons like Putnam because many of the groups whose decline hechronicles were created back in the good old days and were led by folkswe all thought of as “community leaders.” The concern is about what willhappen to our communities and way of life if fewer of “us” and more of“them” take on these vital civic posts. As Putnam himself recognizes,however, this is not the first time in our history that well-placed citizenshave fretted about the state of our civic lives and the rise of less appeal-ing newcomers to positions of responsibility.

Every commentator on American habits since Tocqueville has made abig deal about the associations that Americans make and they were rightabout making as much noise as they did. All these observers realized that



the groups or voluntary associations we make are a crucial medium forexchanging ideas and learning similar habits. They are the meansthrough which people learn to mind each other’s business and look outfor each other. Our ties to each other through these “associations” con-stitute a peculiar kind of adhesive, one that doesn’t permanently bindpeople so much as it enables them to stick around, and to, each other indifferent combinations for various purposes, and for indefinite lengthsof time. How we stack and arrange these ties—which persons areallowed to join in and what they bring to the mix—goes some way todefining what a community looks like and how well it works.

To the extent that Americans’ civic habits have become more “dem-ocratic” of late means that the hard work of building a community inwhich different people can live, work, and practice the art of politicstogether goes on. We can’t be sure what good will come of all this workor in what precise direction our society will be nudged as a new gener-ation of civic leaders emerges. What is clear, however, is that our greatcivic adventure will have some new people helping to plan the itinerary.Quite apart from our private lives, we share similar public sensibilities.Americans have managed the tension between liberty and equality verywell, and the way we’ve done it is nothing short of brilliant. Binding ourambitions to something bigger than ourselves, historian Arthur M.Schlesinger told us many decades ago, we discovered how to curb theexcesses of liberty and acquisitiveness with healthy doses of workingtogether. If Tocqueville came back for a visit, he would be pleased byour accomplishment.

Notes

1. R. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of AmericanCommunity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 367.

2. R. Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work,Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002),335–43.

3. R. Florida, “Cities and the Creative Class,” City & Community, 2 (2003), 8.4. R. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 287.5. Ibid., 99, 105, 111, and 128.6. Ibid., 120–22.7. D. McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 376–77.




Chapter 3

Social Capital, the Sow’s Ear, and the Closing of the

Political Universe

Stephen Samuel Smith and Jessica Kulynych

Reflecting in 2005 about the scholarly outpouring triggered by his1995 article “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam said that the inter-

vening decade of research had confirmed many of his initial claimsabout social capital.1 But, he acknowledged, “[I] now think that myanalysis overlooked three important factors: the growth of inequality,the growth of diversity, and the decay of mobilizing organizations.”2

That acknowledgment addresses some of the earliest, strongest, andmost frequent criticisms of the work of Putnam and others who toutsocial capital as a cure for much of what ails the world. According tothese criticisms, social capitalists, as Putnam calls himself, downplaycrucial issues, such as the growing gap between rich and poor and thepolitical assault on labor, civil rights, and other organizations that rep-resent the exploited and oppressed. The acknowledgment of the impor-tance of these issues follows at least one other major refinement inPutnam’s influential early work on social capital: his subsequent dis-tinction between bonding and bridging social capital.3 With this dis-tinction Putnam sought to address another early, powerful, and strongobjection to the putative benign effects of social capital—social capitalcan sometimes have adverse social consequences, as evidenced by thestrong social networks that facilitated Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bomb-ing of the Oklahoma City federal building.


The extent to which these additional variables and conceptual refine-ments adequately address criticism of the social capital bandwagon rollingmerrily through much of the social sciences is very ably discussed else-where. Our concern is with a different kind of issue—the problem ofusing the term social capital to discuss political activity and civicinvolvement. We do not dispute the importance of studying the empiri-cal phenomena to which the term social capital typically refers; we dis-pute the use of the term itself. And because the term social capital is thevery name of this corpus of scholarship and policy prescription, we viewour criticism as pinpointing a sow’s ear that no amount of additionalvariables or conceptual refinements can turn into a scholarly or policysilk purse. As a result of the historic association of the word capital witheconomic discourse, the term social capital—when applied to the studyof political activity and civic engagement as Putnam has so famouslydone—blurs key analytic distinctions and has the ideological conse-quences of euphemizing capitalist social relations as well as makingthem seem to be a largely inevitable and natural aspect of the humancondition. As such, the widespread use of the term contributes to whatMarcuse many years ago called the closing of the political universe andthe closing of the universe of discourse—the use of language in a waythat inhibits thinking that challenges the prevailing social order and itsideological justifications.4

We can anticipate our argument by noting the consequences of thisblurring. One consequence involves the analogies with financial capitalthat are frequently found in the social capital literature. However, to viewsocial capital and financial capital as merely different species of the samegenus, capital, is to ignore the extent to which the operation of financialcapital constitutes the bowling leagues and neighborhood organizationsthat exemplify social capital in ways that are deeper and more significantthan the ways in which their operation constitutes financial capital.Similarly, actors with access to financial capital, especially large amountsof it, play a role in many aspects of social and political life that is pro-foundly and qualitatively different from the role allowed by access tosocial capital, even large amounts of it.

A second aspect of this blurring arises from the historic roots of theword capital in economic discourse. As a result of these roots, to charac-terize civic engagement and the preconditions of democracy as socialcapital is to foster the view that community involvement and politicalparticipation are forms of economic activity, thus blurring importantdistinctions and undermining the development of all-encompassing,genuine forms of democracy. Similarly, in addition to being rooted in



economic discourse, the word capital has historically been associatedwith capitalism, an economic system in which individualism, competi-tion, and the pursuit of wealth play a major role. However, in most polit-ical traditions, individualism, competition, and the pursuit of wealth aregenerally viewed as different from the civic virtues that discussions ofsocial capital frequently seek to promote. Thus, to call upon all citizensto become social capitalists, as Robert Putnam does,5 is to use the wordin a manner that obscures many of capital’s longstanding and historicmeanings. Moreover, as suggested by Putnam’s use of the term socialcapitalist, as well as by his claim that working-class solidarity is a formof social capital,6 the term social capital imposes a universalizing logicon political activity that minimizes the historical context that givesmeaning to much of this activity.

Employing a term that blurs these many distinctions adversely affectsscholarly inquiry, whatever its implicit or explicit normative concerns.That adverse effect is sufficient to justify the use of a term other thansocial capital. Adding to the case for an alternative are the ideologicalconsequences of the term social capital. By giving the word capital sobroad, pervasive, and honorific a meaning, the term social capital, andderivatives such as social capitalist, serve to naturalize and legitimate thesocial, economic, and political relations that characterize capitalism. Asa result, the term social capital has important ideological consequencesthat, whatever one’s normative position on the merits of capitalism,require acknowledgment. But such acknowledgment is largely absentfrom the literature on social capital. That absence only serves to amplifythe term’s ideological consequences.

Underlying our discussion of the analytical and ideological conse-quences of the term social capital is a view that sees the language andcategories of political and social inquiry as having wide-ranging conse-quences of the kind nicely summarized by David McNally:

Language is thus social and historical. Meanings exist for me only in myrelations with others . . . and these social relations themselves are dynamic;they involve struggles over domination and resistance, shifting balances offorce and power . . . Language does not present me with a single structureof grammatical relations and meanings. On the contrary, my involvementin language entails my immersion in a social and historical field ofthemes, accents and meanings, which are always contested and neverclosed. The word I choose, the utterances I convey, involve a positioningwithin that field. There are always alternative ways of expressing andarticulating my experiences, my positions, my aspirations.7

SOCIAL CAPITAL 43


In addition to agreeing with McNally that meanings are the result ofstruggles and are always open to change and contestation, we wouldemphasize that these struggles reflect and constitute power relations insociety. They are struggles, as Nancy Fraser explains, to “define socialreality” and thus to “enshrine certain interpretations of social life asauthoritative and to delegitimate or obscure others.” Within this struggle:

Particular words and expressions often become focal . . . functioning askeywords, sites at which the meaning of social experience is negotiatedand contested. Keywords typically carry unspoken assumptions and con-notations that can powerfully influence the discourses they permeate—inpart by constituting a body of doxa, or taken for granted commonsensebelief that escapes critical scrutiny.8

Our inquiry is concerned with the way social capital functions as a key-word in recent politics and scholarship. We explore the context in whichsocial capital has become such a keyword, as well as the taken-for-granted beliefs that underlie the term. Our concern is with what the termmeans. Ultimately, our analytical and ideological critiques come togetherin this “politics of language.” To the extent that the terminology of socialcapital brings together contradictory ideas, ignores the history and con-text of those ideas, and makes evaluative or normative theorizing diffi-cult, it also enshrines a certain definition of social reality.

Our argument develops in three stages. The first provides an accountof the recent history of the term social capital to show how its currentusage constitutes a one-sided version of a contested lineage. The secondstage discusses reasons for the popularity of the term, which cannot beunderstood, we argue, absent the term’s consonance with a wide range ofrecent intellectual, political, and social developments. Among thesedevelopments are the economic atmosphere in the U.S., the seeming tri-umph of capitalism over alternative ways of organizing economic activ-ity, the bureaucratization of the policy-making process, and what hasbeen called—both boastfully and scornfully—economic imperialism:the use of methods and concepts rooted in neo-classical economics tounderstand a wide range of political and social relations. The secondsection also develops our arguments about the analytic and ideologicalconsequences of the term social capital. Finally, the third section sumsup our argument and suggests that the term social capacity has as muchheuristic value as the term social capital without having unfortunate ide-ological implications and obscuring key analytic distinctions.



The Meanings of Social Capital

One consequence of the contemporary interest in social capital has beenthat considerable research has been done on the history of the term,which appears, albeit with various meanings, in the works of intellectualtitans such as John Dewey, Alfred Marshall, and Karl Marx. Lesser-known writers used the term as well. Among them was Lyda J. Hanifan,an early twentieth-century educator and reformer, whom Putnam cred-its with developing an “account of social capital [that] anticipated virtu-ally all the crucial elements in later interpretations but his conceptualinvention apparently attracted no notice . . . and disappeared without atrace.”9 While the term also appears, again with widely varying mean-ings, in the work of other writers, it did not figure prominently or sys-tematically in postwar social theory until Pierre Bourdieu used it toname one of his pivotal theoretical constructs. Bourdieu conceptualizessocial capital in terms of networks that are intimately related to the the-oretical concerns around which much of his work pivots: the structuresand processes that facilitate the reproduction of power and privilege.The term social capital appears in Bourdieu’s work at least as early as the1970 publication of La Reproduction, the English translation of whichwas published in 1977 as Reproduction in Education, Society, andCulture.10 However, his most systematic and accessible discussion of theconcept can be found in the 1983 “Ökonomishes Kapital, kulturellesKapital, soziales Kapital” which appeared in English in 1985 under thetitle “The Forms of Capital.”11 In this piece Bourdieu argues that onecannot understand the social world without considering capital, but it is“capital in all its forms and not solely in the form recognized by eco-nomic theory.”12 The “three fundamental guises” in which capital canpresent itself are:

economic capital, which is immediately and directly convertible intomoney and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights; as cul-tural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economiccapital and may be institutionalized in the form of educational qualifica-tions; and as social capital, made up of social obligations (“connections”),which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital and maybe institutionalized in the form of a title or nobility.13

Social capital he further explains:

is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to pos-session of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships

SOCIAL CAPITAL 45


of mutual acquaintance and recognition—or in other words, to member-ship in a group.14

As indicated by the definitions of the three guises of capital, cultural andsocial capital are convertible to economic capital, but the latter, he makesclear, is primary.15

After Bourdieu, the next major theorist to discuss social capital in acomprehensive manner was James S. Coleman who views social capitalas a corrective to “the broadly perpetrated fiction in modern society”associated with the political philosophy of natural rights and classicaland neoclassical economic theory that society “consists of a set of inde-pendent individuals . . . and that the functioning of the social systemconsists of the combination of these actions of independent individu-als.”16 The concept of social capital corrects this fiction by calling atten-tion to certain aspects of social structure. The concept’s value “liesprimarily in the fact that it identifies certain aspects of social structureby their function . . . The function identified by the concept ‘social cap-ital’ is the value of those aspects of social structure to actors, as resourcesthat can be used by the actors to realize their interests.”17

Calling attention to the way economists have used the concept ofhuman capital in the past thirty years, Coleman extends the analogy toinclude social capital:

Just as physical capital is created by making changes in materials so as toform tools that facilitate production, human capital is created by changingpersons so as to give them skills and capabilities that make them able toact in new ways. Social capital, in turn, is created when the relationsamong persons change in ways that facilitate action. Physical capital iswholly tangible . . . human capital is less tangible, being embodied in theskills and knowledge acquired by an individual; social capital is even lesstangible, for it is embodied in the relations among persons.18

Insofar as Coleman sees social capital as embodied in relations amongindividuals, there is an overlap between his perspective and Bourdieu’s.Moreover, there are certain obvious parallels between the two scholars’trinities—Coleman’s physical/human/social capital and Bourdieu’s eco-nomic/cultural/social capital—but the differences, only slightly lessobvious, are at least as striking. For Bourdieu social capital is crucial tothe reproduction of prevailing class, power, and status relationships.Coleman, on the other hand, presents social capital as fulfilling func-tions that are much more benign. This presentation is exemplified by allof the examples he uses to introduce his theoretical discussion. The first



example involves radical student activists in South Korea whose similargeographic origins are a source of social capital. In addition, their “studycircles themselves constitute a form of social capital—a cellular form oforganization” that facilitates opposition to a repressive regime.19 The sec-ond example concerns the sources of trust between doctor and patient;a third concerns the differences between Jerusalem and Detroit thatallow a mother to let her children travel and play unattended in theMiddle East but not the Motor City; and the fourth concerns the waythat merchants in Cairo’s central market cooperate to satisfy both theirown and their customers’ needs and preferences.20 Who but the likes ofa member of the secret police, child molester, ambulance-chasing attor-ney, or usurer could take exception to these goals?

Although Bourdieu’s use of social capital antedates Coleman’s bymany years, in the social capital corpus Bourdieu has largely gone, asBen Fine puts it, “from distinction to extinction”21 because it isColeman’s conception of social capital that has been adopted by scholars,journalists, and policymakers. The most important example of theprominence of Coleman’s understanding, and neglect of Bourdieu’s, isthe work of Robert Putnam whose celebrated attempts to understanddemocracy and civic life go a long way toward explaining social capital’spopularity in scholarly and lay discourse.22 Bourdieu’s name does notappear in the index of Putnam’s seminal book dealing with democracyin Italy nor is he mentioned in the key footnote dealing with social cap-ital where Putnam cites Coleman and several other authors.23 Moreover,Bourdieu’s name is absent from Putnam’s early work on civic engage-ment in the United States and when it does subsequently appear, Putnamelides the crucial differences between Bourdieu’s and Coleman’s usages.24

Like Coleman, Putnam sees an increase of social capital as the solu-tion to a wide range of problems. Perhaps his most sweeping claim iscontained in the final sentence of Making Democracy Work: CivicTraditions in Modern Italy, “Building social capital will not be easy,but it is the key to making democracy work.”25 That claim was slightlymodified in Putnam’s subsequent Bowling Alone: The Collapse andRevival of American Community, “The performance of our democraticinstitutions depends in measurable ways upon social capital.”26 However,this book, too, contains an expansive view of social capital. Commentingupon the French Revolution’s ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity,Putnam claims that “Fraternity, as the French democrats intended it, wasanother name for what I term ‘social capital.’”27 Commenting on otherpositive consequences of social capital, he says:

SOCIAL CAPITAL 47


Historically, social capital has been the main weapon of the have-nots,who lacked other forms of capital. “Solidarity forever” is a proud, strate-gically sensible rallying cry for those such as ethnic minorities or theworking class, who lack access to conventional political clout.28

As noted at the chapter’s outset, Putnam’s work has given rise to wide-spread research and debate. In addition to the contested issues notedearlier, two are especially relevant here. The first involves the relation-ship between the social capital corpus and the growing influence of eco-nomic models in the social sciences. For example, after noting thisinfluence, Foley and Edwards say that social capital “is the most recentin a string of efforts—including human capital and cultural capital—toamend or overcome the failure of the predominant economic model toincorporate nonmarket factors.”29 In this respect, they see social capitalas an extremely useful heuristic “for drawing attention to neglected non-market aspects of social reality.”30

The second issue involves the claim that the term social capital merelyputs old conceptual and theoretical wine in a new terminological bottle.As past president of the American Sociological Association AlejandroPortes points out, the “term does not embody any idea really new tosociologists,” but “simply recaptures an insight present since the verybeginnings of the discipline.”31 Given that this insight has been aroundfor so long a time, Portes attributes “the novelty and heuristic power ofsocial capital” to two sources. First, it emphasizes “the positive conse-quences of sociability while putting aside its less attractive features.”Second, it allows these positive consequences to be viewed as:

sources of power and influence, like the size of one’s stock holdings orbank account. The potential fungibility of diverse sources of capitalreduces the distance between the sociological and economic perspectivesand simultaneously engages the attention of policymakers seeking lesscostly, non-economic solutions to social problems.32

Like Portes, we believe that part of the appeal of the term social capitalis that it deflects attention away from other issues. However, we proposeto take this point further by discussing how the mutually reinforcingrelationship between the term social capital and the intellectual, politi-cal, and economic milieu of the past two decades, especially in theUnited States, have also contributed to the widespread use of the termsocial capital. We applaud, as do Foley and Edwards, efforts “to amendor overcome the failure of the predominant economic model to incorpo-rate nonmarket factors.” However, in our view, there are many problems



with using a vocabulary—especially the term social capital—drawn fromthe predominant economic model to overcome the deficits of this modelbecause, rather than reducing the distance between the economic andother perspectives, the term social capital dissolves the latter into the for-mer, thus distracting attention away from key political issues.

Social Capital, Language, and the World

Before discussing how the term social capital as developed by Colemanand applied by Putnam impedes rather than advances understanding, itwill be useful to emphasize how the term invokes ideas, values, and sen-timents that are intimately linked to the political, intellectual, and eco-nomic climate of the past two decades. Indeed, it would be surprising ifsuch linkages did not exist because the many differing, vague, and con-tradictory uses of the term, combined with the fact that, as Portes says,“[it] does not embody any idea really new to sociologists,” make it hardto believe that the term’s popularity can be solely attributed to whateverheuristic value it may possess. Our discussion will thus highlight thecomplex interplay between language and the world—demonstratinghow our language is in part shaped by our world, and how our world isin part shaped by our language.

We can begin to understand these issues by looking at the social sci-ences themselves. A key aspect of developments in these disciplines dur-ing the past half century is exemplified by the title of an edited volumethat included one of Coleman’s early discussions of social capital:Economic Imperialism: The Economic Method Applied Outside the Fieldof Economics.33 Whether this imperialism is celebrated, as it was in thisbook, or criticized, as in others, it is clear that the past fifty years havewitnessed the increasing application of concepts and methods tradition-ally associated with economics to a wide range of issues traditionally theresponsibility of political scientists and sociologists. Given such eco-nomic imperialism, Putnam’s claims about the importance to democracyof social capital—a concept ultimately rooted in economic analysis—isperhaps not all that remarkable. After all, one of the most influentialbooks written in the past fifty years dealing with democracy was titledAn Economic Theory of Democracy; and while social capital played norole in Downs’s 1957 classic, the book was a seminal attempt to applyeconomic analyses to the study of democracy.34

While the spread of economic analysis is indisputable, the jury is stillout on its causes and effects. Undoubtedly, there are intellectual benefitsendogenous to political inquiry that account in part for the popularity

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of economic analysis in such inquiry. In addition, certain applications ofeconomic analysis have been fruitful for the understanding of social andpolitical phenomena. However, the intellectual consistency, stability,and predictability provided by this form of analysis cannot entirelyexplain its rapid rise to canonical levels. Rather, the popularity in polit-ical inquiry of economic analysis, in general, and social capital, in par-ticular, cannot be understood absent discussion of broader political andintellectual developments.

Theodore Lowi called attention to some of these developments in his1991 presidential address to the American Political Science Associationin which he argued that the increasing use of economic analysis by pol-icymakers is paralleled by a “depoliticization” of politics.35 Much ofLowi’s argument rests on the claim that the influence of economics inpolitical analysis is linked to the growing bureaucratization of the poli-cymaking process, a development that has been discussed at length bymany other commentators, including the early Frankfort theorists,Habermas, Cohen and Rogers, and Young.36 These commentators notethat as the state becomes increasingly bureaucratized, efficiencybecomes the primary political value, replacing discussions of justice andinterest with discussions of what is possible and practical—with meansrather than ends and with method rather than truth. Divorced from sub-stantive debate over the ends of politics, public decision-makingbecomes primarily a technical problem. Traditional political issues areredefined as technical issues to be solved by experts.

Valorization of Capitalism

To these long-range trends contributing to economic imperialism ingeneral can be added important recent historical events that furtherexplain the popularity of the term social capital. To begin with, theprospects for states and movements rooted in the Marxist tradition havediminished significantly. The Soviet Union has collapsed. China isincreasingly characterized by capitalist relations of production andgrowing economic inequality. And, while insurgent movements callingthemselves Marxist can be found in many parts of the world, their abil-ity, either singly or in toto, to make any significant changes in global eco-nomic or political relationships seems weaker than at any time duringthe past hundred years. Insofar as the Marxist tradition has been seen,both by itself and its antagonists, as the major challenge to capitalism,the demise and decline of movements in that tradition make capitalism’s



sway and influence seem stronger than at any time since the publicationof the Communist Manifesto.

The same years that have seen the decline, demise, and discrediting ofmovements and states claiming inspiration from Marx have generallybeen years of growth, at least according to conventional indicators, forthe world’s single most important capitalist economy, the United States.Moreover, whatever devastation has been caused on a world scale by theeconomic restructuring and increased globalization of the late twentiethcentury, the institutions and individuals who own, control, and/or haveaccess to capital have done quite well during this period, despite theburst of the dot-com bubble in 2000 and the subsequent two-year down-turn of the stock market. While these profits have especially gone toowners and managers of large amounts of capital, they have also bene-fited individuals with access to small amounts, such as those typicallypossessed by people who think, write, and read about democracy, trust,civic engagement, and similar issues. In the halls of academia it has beendifficult during most of the past twenty years to read a quarterly state-ment from TIAA-CREF without feeling the warm glow that accompa-nies citizenship in the shareholder nation that the United States is toutedto be by the business pages in the daily paper.

Capitalism’s current widespread prestige contrasts sharply with thesituation in 1916, the year in which Hanifan first used the term socialcapital, and when this conceptual innovation, as Putnam points out,attracted no notice. There are undoubtedly many reasons why Hanifan’sterminology failed to catch fire, but some of them almost certainlyreflected the fact that during the decade in which he was writing, capi-talism and capital lacked the widespread cachet they would enjoy eightyyears later. Among that decade’s characteristics depriving capitalism andcapital of such widespread cachet were: an influential Progressive move-ment, a vigorous socialist party, the strike wave of 1919, and a BolshevikRevolution that to millions around the world portended, initially at least,an era in which life would not be so pervasively shaped by the differen-tial ownership and control of capital, as the term was then widely under-stood to mean. In such a milieu, it is difficult to believe that, even if someother writers did pick up Hanifan’s usage of social capital, the termwould have been as widely embraced in the 1910s as it has been in thepast twenty years with so little commentary about the ideological andpolitical consequences of using the term to characterize an extremelybroad range of social relations, including working class solidarity andthe political resources of the poor.

SOCIAL CAPITAL 51


Social Capital in the Contemporary Political Milieu

When we examine the language of social capital against this backgroundof general depoliticization and specific valorization of capitalism, it isapparent that our language is a reflection of the world around us. Theconcept of social capital reflects both the long-term tendencies towardthe bureaucratization of policymaking and political processes describedby Lowi, Habermas, and other theorists as well as specific historicalevents of the late twentieth century.

Talking about political life as if the accumulation of capital deter-mines our performance in the public marketplace is understandable ifwe really have become consumer-citizens. The reification of methodimplied by social capital’s economistic interpretation of human behav-ior reflects the bureaucratization of public life and the consequent riseof technical expertise and strategic calculation in political decision-making. Accumulating social capital becomes more important than theends to which that capital is to be put. Lowi’s description of econo-mistic political science as “dismal” and lacking passion is hardly sur-prising in a world where public decision-making is largely devoid ofnormative content.37

Social capital, we should add, is just one of many examples of how thevocabulary of the stock market has permeated social and political dis-course in the late twentieth century. Consider, for example, Putnam’sdescription of his methodology in Making Democracy Work. Discussingthe importance of using several different methodologies for gatheringdata, Putnam states, “The prudent social scientist, like the wise investor,must rely on diversification to magnify the strengths, and to offset theweaknesses, of any single instrument.”38

Like the wise investor? Why not the cook who combines just the rightamount of several different spices to get the desired taste? Why not thedietician who chooses foods from several different groups to assure goodhealth? Why not the savvy coach who knows the dangers of relying onone player to score all the points? Why not the farmer who knows thefolly of putting all the eggs in a single basket? Surely, cooking, eating,participation in sports, and transporting fragile objects are more basicaspects of human experience than investing. But in the heady economicatmosphere of the late twentieth century United States, Putnam could beconfident that those who read about social capital would be as familiarwith prudent investment strategies as those who write about it.

Consider also the opening paragraph of the announcement of theApril 1999 annual meeting of the Urban Affairs Association (UAA), the



theme of which was “The Social Reconstruction of the City: SocialCapital and Community Building.”

As cities have responded to new economic, political, and policy contexts,they have begun to develop a portfolio of strategies for institution build-ing and community revitalization. These efforts have developed what canbe seen as social capital, a partner to financial capital. Central to this port-folio is the education system . . . Intellectual skills have become as centralto the future of urban areas as manual labor was to the past; efforts toimprove, develop, and extend these skills are now entering the portfolio ofdevelopment strategies.39

Portfolio? Would not repertory or group have served equally well? As theeconomistic implications of the language of capital reflect the apoliticalcharacter of public life, so too does the language of the stock market usedto discuss research strategies and the amelioration of social problemsreflect the contemporary hegemony of capitalism.

How Language Shapes the World: Thinking About Social Problems

Were it true that the term social capital merely reflects the socio-politi-cal context of the late twentieth century, we might find its use disheart-ening, but not necessarily worthy of sustained critique. But we believethat the use of the language of social capital is more than a reflection ofan already existing world. The term social capital also helps to create andsustain that world and the language itself has pernicious consequences.

One of the reasons these consequences are pernicious is that the termsocial capital involves claims about social reality that are even strongerthan those underlying generic economic imperialism. Generic economicimperialism generally involves the use of models in which self-interest isthe key, if not the only, motivation underlying human behavior. Inresponding to criticism that such an approach reduces the richness ofhuman motivation to the mere pursuit of self-interest, proponents of suchmodels frequently respond that they do not deny the existence of benev-olence, altruism, anger, and so forth. Rather, they claim that humanbehavior can be understood as if it were chiefly, or even solely, motivatedby self-interest. But social capital is not an as-if concept. While socialcapital may not be palpable, for Coleman and Putnam it is every bit asreal as any other non-physical aspect of social reality.

Lest there be any doubt that social capital is not an as-if concept, con-sider the numerous discussions of ways to increase the stock of social

SOCIAL CAPITAL 53


capital as in the concluding chapter of Bowling Alone titled “Toward anAgenda for Social Capitalists.”40 Such discussions call attention toanother difference between social capital and self-interest. Eighteenth-century theorists may have encouraged the pursuit of self-interestbecause, as Hirschman has pointed out, they viewed it as more benignthan the pursuit of glory, which, in their view, had ravaged European civ-ilization.41 But two hundred years after Adam Smith, very little of the lit-erature rooted in neo-classical economics encourages the pursuit ofself-interest in the way that the literature on social capital frequently pre-scribes an increase in its stock as a way to improve democracy, child-rearing, education, and to deal with a broad range of social problems.

Consider again the announcement of the 1999 annual meeting of theUAA quoted earlier. Perhaps, as the announcement says, there is a greatneed for partnerships between social and financial capital in the recon-struction of the city. But surely any discussion of such partnerships mustbe framed by the recognition that the need for the social reconstructionof the city stems in no small measure from the way in which financialcapital—through real estate speculation, development, deindustrializa-tion, and so forth—has devastated many cities and eroded what is usu-ally termed their social capital. Yet the linkage between the operation offinancial capital and the erosion of urban social capital typically receivesvery little attention in discussions of the social reconstruction of the city.For example, no mention of this linkage appears in the announcement ofthe UAA’s annual meeting cited above.

It is surely one of the great ironies of contemporary social thoughtthat at the very time when the inequities of income and wealth of exist-ing global capitalism are skyrocketing, there has been an explosion ofboth professional and lay literature that views a broad spectrum of socialproblems in terms of social capital. Such a view suggests that all partiescan gain access to capital, just different forms, and that appropriate“investments” in social capital will compensate for gross inequities infinancial capital. But whatever social capital might be embodied in aplethora of bowling leagues, PTAs, church groups, and other neighbor-hood organizations is rarely sufficient to oppose successfully the sway offinancial capital or even approximate the social capital (e.g., institutionalaffiliations and networks of powerful people) enjoyed by those withaccess to the most financial capital. Moreover, as indicated by how theloss of jobs has eroded the ghetto neighborhood organizations and net-works that exemplify social capital, the operation of financial capitalconstitutes these organizations and networks much more than they con-stitute financial capital.



Thinking About Democracy

In addition to distorting understanding of social problems, the termsocial capital undermines the development of an all encompassing, gen-uine form of democracy. Not content with protective and elitist versionsof democracy, participatory and deliberative theorists have put forth richand compelling alternatives that strive to engender genuine participationand to guarantee equal voice in public life. In these thick versions ofdemocracy, genuine participation is qualitatively different from a markettransaction, and public deliberation and reasoning are distinct fromother types of social and strategic communication. Deliberative and par-ticipatory versions of democracy require an atmosphere and attitudewhere people see their political interactions as motivated by the searchfor the best and most just solutions to public problems. Thus, as Youngpoints out, people must see themselves and their interests as capable ofbeing transformed by the political process, and they must constantlystrive to have their deliberations informed by as many social perspec-tives as possible.42 As Rousseau first suggested, all must care about hav-ing everyone’s voice heard.

Economic transactions, on the other hand, assume and require nosuch attitude of magnanimity and familiarity. Economic transactionsgenerally begin with a fixed interest and work to achieve that interest.Such transactions make little “economic” sense if one’s interests are fun-damentally transformed in the process because economic transactionsare instrumental not transformative ones. The term social capitalignores the emotionally rich world of meaning that has surrounded theidea of democracy and reduces that world of meaning to the very differ-ent language of economics.

In employing the language of economics, the term social capital pri-vatizes public communication. Thinking about political participation inthe language of the market encourages us to see political participation ina limited, instrumental way. The terminology of social capital allows thelanguage of economic transaction to describe public interactions,thereby integrating two distinct and opposing worlds of meaning. Thisterminology also equalizes these opposing worlds of meaning. If wethink of political activity as just another type of economic transaction, asrooted in just another type of capital, then we can easily attribute equalworth to these activities, putting economic activity on par with politicalactivity. This normative sleight of hand eviscerates democracy—settingup two normatively different activities as equal and alike, and therebyelevating the value of one and diminishing the value of the other.

SOCIAL CAPITAL 55


Thinking About Labor and Poor People’s Organizations

In addition to undermining the development of thick versions of democ-racy, the term social capital calls to mind Marcuse’s discussion in OneDimensional Man of how certain types of language integrate their con-ceptual opposites, thus smoothing over the tension between contradic-tory concepts.43 This problem is evident when the term social capital isused to describe labor and poor people’s organizations. Consider forexample, Putnam’s view, noted above, that working-class solidarity is aform of social capital. Both the nature and magnitude of the problem canbest be appreciated by recalling the song whose title gave rise to the slo-gan “solidarity forever,” a rallying cry that Putnam views as a proud andstrategically sensible one.

Trust may be an essential component of solidarity but the solidaritycelebrated in this song has aspects to which the term social capital can-not even begin to do justice. This is so for three reasons. First, the soli-darity invoked by the song involves sentiments of all-for-one andone-for-all that are diametrically opposed to the competitive, individu-alist ones evoked by the terms capital and capitalism. Second, the soli-darity called for by the song involves a very sharp distinction betweenthe “greedy parasite” with “untold millions that they never toiled to earn”and working people, standing “outcast and starving ’mid the wonders wehave made.”44 Accompanying that sharp distinction are anger, resent-ment, and fury that cannot be comprehended by even the most updatedlanguage of social capital. This is because, while those sentiments evokewhat Putnam calls bonding social capital, the social context giving riseto this bonding is profoundly different from that which characterizedthe bonding social capital in, for example, the networks with whichTimothy McVeigh was affiliated, however much they too were character-ized by anger, resentment, and fury. Nor can the sentiment of solidarityevoked by those verses be reduced to the quotidian trust and norms ofreciprocity embodied in organizations more laudable than McVeigh’s—e.g., bowling leagues and PTAs—because the contexts giving rise to thenorms of reciprocity of these various organizations are profoundly dif-ferent. To say that, as Putnam does, “social capital has been the mainweapon of the have-nots” is to emphasize form at the expense of contentand to ignore the consciousness—whether trade-unionist, revolutionary,or whatever—that gives working-class solidarity its political meaning.

Finally, the song involves a revolutionary vision of “bringing tobirth a new world from the ashes of the old” and this new world’s beingthe working class’s “not to slave in, but to master and to own.”45 This



revolutionary vision reflects the affiliation of Ralph Chaplin, the lyricist,who was the editor of Solidarity, the newspaper of the Industrial Workersof the World (IWW).46 The IWW, it should be remembered, called for theoverthrow of capitalism and began its constitution by claiming that “Theworking class and the employing class have nothing in common.”47 To besure, most of the song is typically skipped in contemporary union halls,few contemporary union members know the song’s origins or anythingabout the IWW, and Putnam has no obligation to help today’s labormovement better understand its history. However, he has a scholarly obli-gation to not obfuscate that history, especially because he fully under-stands, as noted in Making Democracy Work, that “history matters.”48

Indeed much of the power of the empirical analyses in that book, and inBowling Alone, stems from the sensitivity to history and to how the past,and peoples’ understanding of it, shapes the present. But to apply the lan-guage of social capital to working class solidarity—especially the sloganSolidarity Forever—is to display extraordinary insensitivity to history. Tosay, as Putnam does, that “social capital has been the main weapon of thehave-nots who lack other forms of capital” is to render, in effect, theopening statement of the IWW constitution as, “The working class andthe employing class have nothing in common—except different forms ofcapital.” Moreover, for Putnam to conceptualize the solidarity in“Solidarity Forever” as a form of social capital makes a mockery of thesong’s aspiration that working-class solidarity can help birth a new worldthat is not plagued by capitalist economic, political, and social relations.

Academics are not the only ones whose understanding of the politi-cal organization of the disadvantaged is distorted by the term social cap-ital. The remarks of community organizers face similar difficulties, asevidenced by the comments of Ernesto Cortes, one of the leaders of theIndustrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Arguably, the IAF has more, andmore successful, community organizing experience under its belt thanany other organization in the country. Because of the IAF’s importanceand because we are sympathetic to its efforts, we discuss in depth howthe language of social capital undermines the organization’s goals.

The IAF grew out of the work of Saul Alinsky who, in his famousReveille for Radicals, explains the conflictive action necessary to fightoppression. What he called a People’s Organization is not “a social ser-vice’s ameliorative gesture, but a hard-driving force, striking and cuttingat the very roots of all the evils which beset the people.” Such an organ-ization, he continues, “thinks and acts in terms of social surgery and notcosmetic cover-ups” and is dedicated to “an eternal war” against poverty,misery, injustice, and despair.49

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Yet, in the 1990s, fifty years later, Ernesto Cortes, a regional directorof the IAF and one of its main theorists, uses a very different language todescribe its activities. He describes community organizing as “reweavingthe social fabric,” saying that social capital is “crucial to the resolution ofcrises and the alleviation of poverty.”50 Part of the problem with Cortes’suse of the term social capital is indicated by our earlier discussion of howthe operation of financial capital has eroded urban social capital. Torephrase that earlier discussion in terms of Cortes’s social fabricmetaphor: there is no way that by itself social can mend what financialcapital has torn, or that by itself social capital can prevent additionaltears. Another part of the problem with Cortes’s use of the term socialcapital is indicated in the previous section about democracy. With itsemphasis on how political activity can transform the thinking of poorpeople, the IAF’s concern with participatory democracy, like all thickversions of democracy, is undermined by the language of social capital.But Cortes’s use of the term social capital involves even broader conflictswith the IAF’s goal of empowering poor people.

Achieving that empowerment depends on recognizing that, accord-ing to Cortes, “without strong countervailing institutions, the imperial-ism of the market will dominate and penetrate all relationships, in bothpublic and private spheres.”51 However, while Cortes seeks to build insti-tutions capable of countering the imperialism of the market, his use ofthe term social capital contributes at a linguistic level to that imperial-ism. It does so because the unspoken assumptions and connotations ofthe word capital work against Cortes’s vision of the collective empower-ment of poor people.

We can see how the term social capital works against collectiveempowerment by noting that Cortes sees community organizations ashelping to create:

an organized constituency with the power and imagination to initiate andsupport policies for change. If we are to create such a constituency andrestore health and integrity to our political process, mitigating the distort-ing role and influence of organized concentrations of wealth, then wemust be vigilant in the development of real democratic institutions.52

Those are laudable goals but the language of social capital underminesthem because the language of the market, of capital and capitalism, andof investment and profit, is associated with a world where individualscompete to get ahead, where life is a race to the top, and where peoplepull themselves up by their bootstraps. These are concepts that invoke



cultural images of competition, self-reliance, and independence, reveredtraits in U.S. culture. As such, they reinforce a rugged individualist ide-ology with regard to success, citizenship, and progress. This discursivecultural context inevitably shapes the way we think about people. Whenwe use terminology so rich in cultural meaning we cannot avoid bring-ing these often pre-reflective meanings into our understanding. In manyof the situations in which social capital terminology is used, the assump-tions and connotations that accompany the term capital infect and dis-tort our understanding.

By arguing that the disadvantaged need social capital, Cortes inad-vertently argues that the disadvantaged need to be more competitive,self-reliant, and independent. Here, the discourse of social capital sug-gests that the powerlessness of the disadvantaged is a result of notenough capital—i.e., not enough independence and self-reliance.Indeed, Cortes’s own language invokes the cultural image of independ-ence and self-reliance:

To think of our relationships as “capital” suggests a different way of think-ing about other people. To create capital we must invest labor and energy,and effort in the here and now to create something for later use. We mustexpend energy now in creating a tool, or learning a skill, or saving money,or building a relationship in order to put it to use in the future. Investmentrequires the ability and discipline to defer gratification, to invest energynot only in the needs or pleasures of the present, but also in the potentialdemands of the future.53

This is self-defeating and contradictory language. Certainly Cortes isnot buying into the stereotype that poor people are lazy, undisciplined,and unable to defer gratification. Indeed this cultural stereotype islargely the result of a language of welfare that categorizes many poorpeople as passive clients of the state. By invoking the self-reliantimagery of capital, Cortes reinforces a negative image that portrayspoor people as in need of discipline, hard work, and self-control. Forpeople who already experience their lives as filled with unremuneratedwork and a lack of power, a vocabulary that reinforces those sentimentsworks against the IAF’s stated goal of collective empowerment. Cortesis actually arguing for the “social” part of social capital: community,interdependence, and collaboration, not individual self-reliance.Unfortunately, the contradictory juxtaposition of social (collaborationand interdependence) with capital (independence and self-reliance)allows us to continue to view the poor as not only in need of traditionalindividualist values, but also as largely to blame for their lack of a

SOCIAL CAPITAL 59


“stock” of social power. Thus, this language smoothes over contradic-tions in just the way Marcuse warned.

Thinking About Political Activity

Our comments about how the term social capital weakens discussions oflabor and poor people’s organizations can be expanded to a discussion ofpolitical activity in general. Although there is ongoing debate about thegeneric merits of transcontextual theoretical language, there is no need totake a position in this debate to recognize that the term social capitalimposes a universalizing logic on political activity that impedes under-standing. Our earlier discussion of working-class solidarity illustrates thispoint. Given the way that Putnam and Coleman define the term socialcapital, working-class solidarity is perforce an example of it and must beincluded along with the relations that characterize bowling leagues, PTAs,and right-wing militias in the category social capital. But to view work-ing-class solidarity as an example of social capital raises all the weightyproblems noted earlier. Perhaps we might try to address these difficultiesby developing additional categories of social capital just as Putnam, draw-ing the distinction between bonding and bridging social capital, tries toaddress the pernicious consequences of certain kinds of social capital. Butwhat might these additional categories be? Working class social capitaland capitalist social capital? Those terms strike us as ludicrous, and toeven suggest them only further emphasizes the problem with using theterm social capital to describe such a wide range of social relations.

Moreover, the breadth of the concept of social capital, combined withthe normative role that Putnam assigns to it, makes it difficult to see thecomplex interactions of networks and relationships. Relationships andnetworks do not simply have either pro-social or anti-social conse-quences. Sometimes relationships may interact or evolve in such a waythat social capital might be initially understood as anti-social—orunderstood as anti-social in a particular context—and come to be seenas pro-social. It is simply impossible to talk normatively about socialcapital in general terms and still adequately grasp the complex nuancesof social relationships.

As these comments suggest, when social capital with positive conse-quences is given a shorthand name, such as trust or connectedness (ashorthand Putnam routinely employs), then that language makes itextremely difficult to explain how non-collaborative, suspicious, non-trusting, conflictive relationships might also enhance democracy, createhealthy individuals, or improve the lot of the disadvantaged. Again, the



IAF provides an instructive example. Where Alinsky advocated “socialsurgery not cosmetic cover-ups,” the language of social capital impliesrebuilding and reweaving as the key to action. Does this change of lan-guage indicate that conflictive action aimed at tearing down relation-ships of oppression is no longer necessary? We think not. Yet, whileCortes may acknowledge the importance of conflict, it is very difficultfor him to talk about it in the language of social capital.

Not Thinking About Capitalism

By minimizing those crucially important characteristics of action that arebased on conflict and by smoothing out social contradictions and obscur-ing history, the term social capital serves to function ideologically. Termsfunction ideologically, according to Iris Young, when they “represent theinstitutional context in which they arise as natural or necessary . . . [fore-stalling] criticism of relations of domination and oppression, and[obscuring] possible more emancipatory social arrangements.”54 This isexactly what the term social capital does, as is indicated by the agenda forsocial capitalists that constitutes the concluding chapter of Bowling Alone.Putnam’s language blurs the historic meaning of the word capitalist bydescribing those who promote and/or participate in community service,family-friendly workplaces, the new urbanism, socially responsible reli-gious activities, community dance troupes, campaign finance reform and,of course, bowling leagues as social capitalists. His language also fostersthe view that this extraordinarily wide range of practices exemplify whatcapitalists do and what capitalism is about. For activities as different asdance troupes, religious organizations, bowling leagues, and family-friendly workplaces to exemplify capitalism is to help make it appear partand parcel of the human condition, i.e., as natural and necessary inYoung’s words. Moreover, to the extent dance troupes, religious organiza-tions, bowling leagues, and family-friendly workplaces are generally seenas good things, the term social capital not only makes capitalism seemnatural and inevitable, but something to which it is difficult to takeexception. Thus, the term social capital helps legitimate capitalism.

To suggest further how the term social capital functions ideologically,we draw on Gramsci’s notions of hegemony and the literature it hasspawned on what is often called the dominant ideology thesis. By mostaccounts, there is little evidence for what Bottomore has called a strongversion of this thesis, i.e., that the ideology of dominant classes andstrata is sufficient to secure the social integration of subordinate classesand strata.55 Rather, as Gramsci noted, the consciousness of subordinate

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classes and strata is typically “contradictory,” drawing upon their experi-ence with subordination, exploitation, resistance, and struggle but stillbearing witness, as Stokes has noted, to the “ability of the dominant toleave a deep mark on the consciousness and perceived interests of thedominated.”56 One aspect of that deep mark reflects what Bottomorecalls a weak version of the dominant ideology thesis, the ability of ahegemonic ideology to “inhibit and confuse the development of thecounter ideology of a subordinate class.”57

The language of social capital does just that. By describing the politicalresources of ordinary citizens, the poor, and the working class as merelyanother form of capital and by applying the word capital to bowlingleagues, dance troupes, church groups, and a wide range of other institu-tions, the term social capital makes it more difficult than it would be oth-erwise to conceptualize political and social life in a vocabulary other thanthat associated with capitalism. That difficulty helps, as Bottomore indi-cates, inhibit the development of ideological challenges to capitalism.

Of course, Putnam, Cortes, Coleman, and others who use the termsocial capital have no obligation to challenge capitalism. Our argumentis independent of whatever views these writers may have on the meritsof capitalism. We are simply calling attention to the fact that the termsocial capital has consequences for, to use Nancy Fraser’s words, theunspoken assumptions, connotations, and taken-for-granted beliefsabout capitalism. In fact, given that the merits of capitalism have beenthe focus of considerable controversy during the past one hundred fiftyyears, it is striking that, the voluminous size of the social capital litera-ture notwithstanding, so little attention has been paid to the possibilitythat the term might just have some ideological consequences. That oneof the most prominent and honored political scientists in the UnitedStates can apply the term social capital to working-class solidarity andcall upon all citizens to become social capitalists without discussingwhether his language may have ideological consequences exemplifiesthis lack of attention. The lack of attention to these ideological consider-ations by the scholar most prominently associated with social capital aswell as a similar lack of attention by many other writers contributes tothe term’s functioning as a keyword in society at large and thus playingthe ideological role that it does.

An Alternative to Social Capital

In addition to indicating the ideological consequences of the termsocial capital, we have argued that the term impedes scholarly inquiry



in several different ways. First, by suggesting that social and financialcapital are merely different species of the same genus, capital, the termsocial capital ignores the extent to which social capital is constituted byfinancial capital as well as the extent to which access to financial capitalconfers social and political advantages that are profoundly different fromthose conferred by access to social capital. Second, to view the precondi-tions of democracy and civic engagement in terms of social capital is tofoster the view that these activities are forms of economic activity, thusdepriving these activities of much of their distinctive meaning. Third,given that the word capital is historically associated with individualismand the pursuit of wealth, to view civic engagement and the resources ofthe economically disadvantaged as social capital is to obscure the mean-ing of words such as capitalist and solidarity. Fourth, when applied tomany aspects of political activity, the term social capital largely ignoresthe historical context that gives this activity its meaning.

These arguments make a compelling case for scholars of all normativepersuasions to avoid the term social capital and seek alternative terms forstudying these processes and relations, which, we agree, are certainlyworth studying. How these alternatives are best conceptualized andphrased is a complicated issue beyond the scope of this chapter, which ismore concerned with critiquing today’s vocabulary than providing a dic-tionary for tomorrow’s. Nonetheless, we can begin a discussion of possi-ble alternatives by suggesting that capital in the term social capital bereplaced by capacity. As is the case with capital, capacity calls attention tothe aspects of social structure that can be conceptualized as provisions forthe future and that facilitate individuals’ actions. To be sure, capacity doesnot allow a facile conceptual trinity of economic/human/social capital.But absent a specific context—which can be supplied equally well forsocial capacity or social capital—the latter’s theoretical pretensions domore to retard inquiry than advance it.

We summarize our argument by comparing it with the analysis devel-oped by Portes in the review article cited earlier. As probably befits anarticle written by a president of the American Sociological Association,the article deals, as the title indicates, with the origins and applicationsof social capital in modern sociology. It concludes by saying that “as alabel for the positive effects of sociability, social capital has, in my view,a place in theory and research,” but several sentences earlier, it also notesthat the concept’s popularity is:

partially exaggerated for two reasons. First, the set of processes encom-passed by the concept are not new and have been studied under other

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labels in the past. Calling them social capital is, to a large extent, just ameans of presenting them in a more appealing conceptual garb.58

Perhaps social capital would provide more appealing conceptual garb forstudies about the causes, consequences, and characteristics of sociability.However, for inquiries into the public and political aspects of humanactivity—and such inquiries are necessarily a part this activity—the garbmay have the sheen of silk but the analytic and ideological sows’ earswoven deeply into the semantic fabric of the term social capital renderthe garment unbecoming.

Notes

1. This chapter is based on S. S. Smith and J. Kulynych, “It May Be Social, butWhy Is It Capital? The Social Construction of Social Capital and the Politicsof Language,” Politics & Society, 30 (1) (2002), 149–86.

2. R. D. Putnam, “1996: The Civic Enigma,” The American Prospect (June 2005),http://www.prospect.org/web/page (accessed December 9, 2005). The earlieranalysis appeared in R. D. Putnam, “Bowling Alone,” Journal of Democracy, 6(1) (1995), 65-78.

3. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of AmericanCommunity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 22–24.

4. H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of AdvancedIndustrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).

5. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone, Chapter 24.6. Ibid., 359.7. D. McNally, “Language, History, and Class Struggle,” in In Defense of

History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda, E. M. Wood and J. B. Foster(eds.) (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997), 39.

8. N. Fraser and L. Gordon, “A Genealogy of ‘Dependency’,” in JusticeInterruptus, N. Fraser (ed.) (New York: Routledge, 1997), 122. Their discus-sion of keywords draws upon Raymond Williams’s Keywords: A Vocabularyof Culture and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).

9. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 19. For a fuller history of the term and con-cept, see James Farr, “Social Capital: A Conceptual History,” Political Theory,31 (2003), 1–28.

10. P. Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron, La Reproduction (Paris: Les Éditions deMinuit, 1970); P. Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron, Reproduction in Education,Society, and Culture (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977).

11. P. Bourdieu, “Ökonomishes Kapital, Kulturelles Kapital, Soziales Kapital,” inSoziale Ungleichheiten, R. Kreckel (ed.) (Goettingen: Otto Schartz & Co,1983); P. Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and



Research for the Sociology of Education, J. G. Richardson (ed.) (Westport,CN: Greenwood, 1985).

12. P. Bourdieu, “Forms of Capital,” 242.13. Ibid., 243.14. Ibid., 249.15. Ibid., 252.16. J. S. Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1990), 300.17. Ibid., 305.18. Ibid., 304.19. Ibid., 302.20. Ibid., 304.21. B. Fine, Social Capital versus Social Theory (Routledge: New York, 2001), 53.22. R. D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); “Bowling Alone,” Journalof Democracy 6 (1) (1995), 65–78; “Tuning In, Tuning Out: The StrangeDisappearance of Social Capital in America,” PS: Political Science andPolitics, 28 (4) (1995), 664–83; Bowling Alone.

23. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 241, footnote 20.24. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 19. Putnam cites Bourdieu along with Hanifan,

Coleman, and others to indicate how “the term social capital itself turns outto have been independently invented at least six times over the twentiethcentury, each time to call attention to the ways in which our lives are mademore productive by social ties.” That Putnam can so casually talk of ourlives being made productive indicates how fully he adopts Coleman’s con-ception of social capital and ignores Bourdieu’s concern with how differen-tial access to social capital helps reproduce prevailing patterns of wealth,status, and power.

25. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 185.26. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 349.27. Ibid., 351.28. Ibid., 359.29. Edwards and Foley, “Civil Society and Social Capital Beyond Putnam,”

American Behavioral Scientist 42 (1998), 128.30. Ibid., 124.31. A. Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern

Sociology,” Annual Review of Sociology, 24 (1998), 15.32. Ibid.33. J. S. Coleman, “Norms as Social Capital,” in Economic Imperialism: The

Economic Method Applied Outside the Field of Economics, G. Radnitzky andP. Bernholz (eds.) (New York: Paragon House, 1987).

34. A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row,1957).

35. T. J. Lowi, “The State in Political Science. How We Became What We Study,”American Political Science Review, 86 (1)(1992), 5.

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36. J. Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, vols. I and II (Boston:Beacon Press, 1987); J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy (New York:Penguin, 1983); I. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 1990).

37. Lowi, “The State,” Political Science, 5.38. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 12.39. Urban Affairs Association, Urban Affairs, (June 1998), 5.40. Putnam, Bowling Alone.41. A. O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for

Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1977).

42. I. Young, “Difference as a Resource in Democratic Communication,” inDeliberative Democracy, J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds.) (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1997).

43. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man.44. R. Chaplin, “Solidarity Forever,” (1915), as quoted in J. L. Kornbluh, Rebel

Voices: An IWW Anthology (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co., 1988),26–27.

45. Ibid.46. J. R. Salter, Jr., “Ralph Chaplin,” in Encyclopedia of the American Left, M. J.

Buhle, P. Buhle, and D. Georgakas (eds.) (Urbana and Chicago: University ofIllinois Press, 1992), 127.

47. J. L. Kornbluh, “Industrial Workers of the World,” in Encyclopedia of theAmerican Left, Buhle et. al.(eds.), 355.

48. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 12.49. S. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals (New York: Vintage Books, 1989[1946]),

133–35.50. E. Cortes, “Reweaving the Fabric: The Iron Rule and the IAF Strategy for

Power and Politics,” in Interwoven Strategies, H. Cisneros (ed.) (New York:W.W. Norton & Co., 1993), 305.

51. Ibid., 316.52. Ibid., 319.53. Ibid., 305.54. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 74.55. T. Bottomore, “Introduction” to N. Abercrombie, S. Hill, and B.S. Turner,

The Dominant Ideology Thesis (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1980s).56. S. C. Stokes, “Hegemony, Consciousness, and Political Change in Peru,”

Politics & Society,19 (3) (1991), 287.57. Bottomore, “Introduction,” x.58. Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology,” 21.



Chapter 4

Moving Beyond Vagueness:Social Capital, Social

Networks, and EconomicOutcomes

Russell Williams

Economists’ understandings of labor markets have gone throughseveral transformations in the last three decades as search theory

and spatial mismatch hypotheses have joined human capital theory asmajor avenues for labor market research. Each of these advances wasintended to improve the match between theory and observed dynam-ics of labor supply, and each posed important contrasts with theexplanatory frameworks that had previously held ascendance in labormarket research. But in recent decades, as these three modes of inquiryhave been theoretically and empirically developed, the importance ofsocial context as a factor in labor market outcomes has become increas-ingly apparent. Since 1990, elements of research into each of these the-ories have been converging with a growing social science inquiry intosocial networks. Understanding the dynamics of social networks isconsequently an important area for further improvements in labormarket theory.

Labor market theory’s growing focus on social networks mirrorsthe growing recognition of the importance of “social capital” in thefield of economic development. Spurred by the work of RobertPutnam and others,1 writings about both local economic development


and international economic development have invoked various conceptsof social capital to explain how some markets for goods and servicesoperate, why some markets fail to operate well, and why some localand/or national economies are more successful than others.

While there is a general awareness that social networks and socialcapital are related terms, a precise relationship between the two con-cepts is often missing. Readers of the various literatures may not easilyascertain whether the terms are different, how they are related, and—ifthey are synonymous—why “networks” are emphasized in the laboreconomics literature, while “capital” is emphasized in the economicdevelopment literature.

A perusal of the literature will also rapidly make one aware of themultiplicity of research questions and contexts in which the terms“social capital” and “social networks” have been used. Articles incorpo-rating these concepts have included studies on the role of trust ineconomies, research about the influence of peer groups and families onpreference formation, studies of networks as sources of information andinfluence, and other subjects. The human focal points to which the con-cepts of social networks and social capital have been applied includeboth individuals (for example, in the sense of the social networks avail-able to a person) and groups of people (for example, in the sense ofbehavioral norms or trust within a group). Furthermore, in the literatureas a whole, various authors ask their readers to consider different socialcapital content and different combinations of social dynamics within theenvironment that holds this social capital content. In some works theterm “social capital” has been used as a synonym for unspecified relation-ships between people, in other works it obviously refers to specific rela-tional structures by which particular things of value are transmitted,while in still other writings it is intended to denote an attribute of anindividual or a group resulting from the networks of social relationships.Adding to the potential confusion faced by readers would be their find-ing that within the literature, the specific definitions of social capital andsocial networks given by different authors vary considerably.

This variation in usage and definition has caused some theorists toquestion the conceptual cohesion of the terms and some theorists todeplore ways in which the terminology has spread. For example, Portes(1998) warns that, “the point is approaching at which social capital comesto be applied to so many events and in so many different contexts as tolose any distinct meaning.”2 Schuller, Baron, and Field declare that “socialcapital has several adolescent characteristics: it is neither tidy nor mature;it can be abused, analytically and politically; its future is unpredictable;



but it offers much promise.”3 Lin states that, “divorced from its roots inindividual interactions and networking, social capital becomes merelyanother trendy term to employ or deploy in the broad context of improv-ing or building social integration and solidarity.”4 Durlauf andFafchamps write, “while conceptual vagueness may have promoted theuse of the term [social capital] among the social sciences, it [vagueness]also has been an impediment to both theoretical and empirical researchof phenomena in which social capital may play a role.”5

Some researchers have addressed this problem by specifying the con-text within which they apply their conclusions about social capital.Szreter advises that, “[social capital] is manifest through certain kinds ofattitudes and dispositions towards fellow-citizens and civic institutions,through networks of contact and association and through participationin civic and public institutions. Empirical work which aims to measureand quantify can observe social capital indirectly and inferentially,through examining the character and incidence of these phenomena.But ideally considerable contextual knowledge is required for unambigu-ous interpretation.”6

However, resorting to context for interpretation of social capital canpose many problems for prescribing public policy. A particular researchcontext of variables and social dynamics examined by a social scientist isstraightforwardly meaningful for public policy in a real-life setting onlyif the forces that are studied can be expected to dominate other dynam-ics when a more comprehensive set of existing forces is included.Similarly, the particular context examined by a researcher is meaningfulfor other areas only when the conclusions drawn from the analysis canbe extrapolated to other situations.

Some other researchers have addressed problems in the application ofthe social capital concept by adding modifiers to the term “social capital.”For example, one author discussing labor market theory has adopted thephrase “extensive social capital” as a way of incorporating the finding thatjob search is most successful when the social contacts are people who areoutside one’s usual circle of friends—Granovetter has called these “weaklinks.” But it is important to note that the problems of social capital con-text and definition still apply—one researcher’s “extensive social capital”in job search using weak links may correspond with another researcher’sdescription of lesser social capital if the second researcher is measuringshared norms and trust. Possible adjectives like extensive, striated, orfragmented are themselves problematic and subject to multiple interpre-tations, since the quantity and quality of one form of social capital doesnot necessarily extrapolate to other forms of social capital.

MOVING BEYOND VAGUENESS 69


For economists and other social scientists who are accustomed tothinking about the three other commonly cited forms of capital (physi-cal capital, financial capital, and human capital), there is another subtlebut important issue in the concept of social capital. It is commonlyassumed that physical, financial, and human capital possess the charac-teristic that “more” is likely to lead to “better” outcomes, and in mostreal-world applications the merit of this assumption is fairly straightfor-ward. However, for social capital the connection between “more” and“better” outcomes is much more complicated.

Consider the following. In an urban environment, there are oftenmany social institutions and considerable social interaction. However,many institutions and interactions may be striated along racial and eth-nic lines. African American families may interact mainly with otherAfrican American families, while Latino families interact mainly withother Latino families, and White families interact mainly with otherWhite families. In this type of situation, it may not be straightforward atall to assess who has “social capital” and who doesn’t. Each group’s socialcapital may be different in important ways, and whether one family’ssocial capital is “more” than another family’s may depend upon the par-ticular types of social forces and outcomes that are the subject of inquiry.

Imagine a second scenario. In a particular city, many jobs are filledthrough word of mouth (as is described later in this essay). In this cityAfrican Americans are as likely to use social networks to find jobs asWhites are and have equivalent success in finding jobs. However, as hasbeen empirically shown that African Americans who use other AfricanAmerican contacts in their successful job search are likely to have lowerwages than White job searchers who use other Whites as contacts, orAfrican American searchers who use Whites—even if there is no differ-ence in the education of the searchers. Like the first scenario, this sce-nario indicates that interpreting social capital can depend upon thecontext of the researcher’s inquiry—and that a finding of substantialsocial capital in one respect may not translate into “better” social capitalin other respects.

Finally, imagine a young man who is a member of an urban gang.This gang has strong norms, values, and trust among its members. Onceagain, it appears that the social capital of this young man depends uponthe dimensions along which we evaluate his networks. It is not theabsence of social capital—in the form of norms, group values, andtrust—that presents problems for the young man. Rather the potentialproblems arise from the relationship of these norms, values, and trust tothose held by the culture at large, the ways in which the social capital is



implemented, and the ways in which the societal institutions present inthat area function. How then, can one conceptualize the importantinsights about social context that are found in the social capital andsocial network literature in ways that provide for more precise interpre-tations that can apply across disciplines, situations, and time periods?

The next three sections immediately following this paragraphdescribe the emergence of the importance of social networks in search,spatial mismatch, and human capital theory respectively, providing thereader with a perspective on the growing importance of social networksin labor market theory to add to the more well-known summaries ofsocial capital in local and international economic development theory.The subsequent section discusses the relationship between social net-works and social capital, illuminating the common conceptual founda-tion of the two terms and addressing the rhetorical tendencies behindtheir usage in much of the literature. That section then calls upon thework done by a virtually forgotten analyst of networks, J. Clyde Mitchell,to provide a framework for clarifying various social network and socialcapital dynamics. Resurrecting and modifying the work of this scholarprovides tools for articulating the important distinctions between thevarious forces discussed in the social capital and social network litera-ture. It also establishes fertile ground for analyzing the impacts ofsocial context and public policy interventions on economic outcomesin a more precise fashion than is done in most of the current socialcapital literature.

Social Networks in the Search Theory Research Agenda

Although some aspects of the search model were discussed as early as1939, search theory did not receive major extended interest until thework of Stigler (1962), Mortensen (1970), and McCall (1970). The basicmodel has spawned prolific writing ever since.7 Search theory has beenthe chief expositor of the uncertainty about job offers faced by those whoseek employment. Search theory does away with the assumption ofinformational certainty (implicit in much of the earlier labor market the-ory), replacing it with the idea of sequential decision-making job searchamid uncertain environments. The job-seeker decision involves thetradeoffs between current offers, further time-consuming search, andthe possibility of higher-wage offers on the other. Reservation wages playan important part in this theory, linking the intuitive idea that someoffers will be rejected as too low with the fact that mathematical theoriesof optimal stopping conclude that the best strategy is to adopt the first



offer above the reservation wage—a wage level that the job-searcherdoes not regard as too low.8

Search theory has been very useful in illuminating aspects of unem-ployment duration, job/worker matching, turnover, and other features ofthe labor market. However, as search theory has advanced, there has alsobeen growing examination of some of its own assumptions. Is the arrivalof job offers a completely stochastic phenomenon? To what extent doindividuals operate independently, and to what extent do they act inways that reflect connection to others?

For example, after a comprehensive review of the search literature intheir classic book, Empirical Labor Economics: The Search Approach,Devine and Kiefer conclude, “looking across studies, we have found evi-dence that the empirical (and theoretical) work on search would bene-fit from changes of emphasis . . . There are definite advances to be madein studying the process by which workers get offers.”9 In more detailedcomments, they state, “the simplest search models assume that the prob-ability that a worker will get an offer in a given period is fixed. We notedirect and indirect evidence that offer arrivals vary across workers andthat search intensity varies as well. Indeed, one recurring impressionfrom studies on the supply and demand sides of the labor market is thatvariation in offers across individuals is more important in explainingvariation in unemployment durations than is variation in reservationwages. Our notes for future research emphasize the need to understandthe process by which offers are made (as a result of efforts of workers andfirms alike), as a complement to the current focus on the process by whichoffers are accepted. Demand and equilibrium are essentially wide opentopics.”10 (italics added)

Recently, search theory researchers have increasingly incorporatedaspects of social context, with a particular emphasis on informationchannels, into their discussions. Descriptive studies of job search havegiven a central role to the distinction between formal channels of obtain-ing jobs (such as employment agencies, trade unions, etc.) and informalchannels (such as referrals from employees and door-to-door search). Inempirical studies of job search, references to information channels havebecome common as part of researchers’ speculation about factors con-tributing to their findings.

Social Networks in the Spatial Mismatch Research Agenda

The role of social context has also emerged as a major factor in spatialmismatch studies. In contrast to search theory’s emphasis on stochastic



models of arrivals of job offers, spatial mismatch analyses focus on racialand locational differences in labor supply. First articulated in 1965 byJohn Kain as a set of interrelated hypotheses about inner city employ-ment, spatial mismatch analyses concentrated on the relationshipbetween housing discrimination, business locations, and employmentoutcomes for inner-city Blacks (some of the more recent literature hasaddressed the spatial implications of employment for Latinos and Asiansas well). The spatial mismatch hypothesis, as originally presented,asserts that the low employment rates of inner-city Blacks are a result ofpast and present housing discrimination combined with the movementof low-skilled jobs from central cities to more distant parts of the metro-politan area as transportation possibilities improved in the distant areas.According to spatial mismatch, the relocation of manufacturing andretailing made it more difficult and costly to reach low-skill jobs fromurban residences, while widespread housing discrimination allowedWhites, but not Blacks, to follow the jobs as they moved. Consequently,according to the spatial mismatch reasoning, there are differences ingeographic access to job opportunities that manifest themselves inhigher unemployment of Blacks.

While there is general agreement about the existence of suburbanhousing discrimination, the movement of manufacturing jobs awayfrom cities, and the idea that these factors have an effect on employmentof low-skilled workers, there has not been agreement on how much of afactor these dynamics play in urban labor market outcomes. Researchershave disagreed about the relative causative importance of distance, onone hand, and labor market discrimination by employers on the other,and about whether it is geographic distance per se that explains urbanemployment, or whether other factors correlated with geographic dis-tance hold more explanatory power.

Social context is a key element of this debate, a point underscored ina 1991 study by Kathleen O’Regan and John Quigley emphasizing theneed to conduct further research into the causative channels of spatialmismatch. The authors summarize spatial mismatch theory as follows:“access affects the employment opportunities and the employment prob-abilities of members of the workforce.”11 They take issue, however, withwhat they describe as the usual interpretation of “access,” which focuseson either linear distance or commute time. “This appears to be a verynarrow definition of access,” they state, “a more plausible interpretationof access may be in terms of the cost of information rather than the costof transportation . . . Yet until recently spatial aspects of the role of infor-mation have been almost completely ignored by economists.”12



O’Regan and Quigley hypothesized that “social isolation deprivesresidents of membership in information networks which wouldimprove their chances for employment. Thus central city Blacks lackaccess to jobs due to their social, rather than geographic, distance.”Using data from the 1980 U.S. Census covering sixteen-to-nineteen-year-olds living at home in forty-seven of the fifty largest metropolitanareas, O’Regan and Quigley found that when family effects are analyzedin comparison with the more commonly analyzed spatial effects, thefamily effects are much more important than the spatial effects.Specifically, controlling for geographic location within the metropolitanarea, there is an increased likelihood that a youth is employed if the par-ent is employed, and an increased likelihood of unemployment if theparent is unemployed. Similarly, the employment status of siblings islinked with the employment status of the youth and youth are morelikely to be employed in a given industry if a parent is employed in thatindustry. O’Regan and Quigley assert that young people are the popu-lation segment most dependent upon networks for information andthat “the most important source of information for these individuals isother family members.” They conclude that “the empirical work sup-ports the hypothesis of information linkages through networks whichaffect employment outcomes.”13

The importance of social context and the convergence of the researchagenda of spatial mismatch with inquiry into social networks is alsomanifested in a 1996 article by Harry Holzer (one of the most prolificwriters about spatial mismatch) and Keith Ihlanfeldt. Using a survey ofemployer recruitment mechanisms in conjunction with data on Blackemployment, they find that “the general association between referralnetworks [used by employers] and distance [from Black neighborhoods]is striking, and seems to confirm that such networks are at least partlygeographically based. In contrast, the relatively small estimated effectswhen recruiting is done through newspapers indicate that when firmschoose to use this method in recruiting particular types of employees,they can overcome the adverse effects of distance by disseminatinginformation over a wide geographic area. The role of information as amechanism through which spatial effects sometimes operate is thereforesuggested by these results.”14

In 1998, Richard Arnott assessed the status of the spatial mismatchhypothesis and summarized the current debates about spatial mismatchas being composed of two parts, the second one showing the critical rolethat social networks play in further development of the theoretical andempirical research of spatial mismatch. First, according to Arnott, the



spatial mismatch hypothesis debate includes a dispute over weakform/strong form interpretation of the hypothesis. He writes, “Thestrong form is that serious limitations on Black residential choice, com-bined with the steady dispersal of jobs from central cities is the only, orat least paramount factor causing the low rates of employment and lowearnings of Afro-American workers.”15

Arnott described the second part of the debate as a dispute aboutcausative channels.

The literature on the spatial mismatch hypothesis has identified two broadchannels through which the combination of housing discrimination andjob suburbanization might adversely affect the labour market situation ofblacks. The first is commuting costs . . . The second channel is job searchwhich has three aspects: the difficulty a downtown resident encounters inobtaining information on suburban jobs, which is more severe the moreprevalent is word-of-mouth-advertising; the possible importance ofacquaintanceship and connections in obtaining a job; and the high trans-port and time costs of searching for a suburban job from a downtown res-idence. No doubt both channels are operative. But there is disagreementconcerning how quantitatively important each is.”16

Other empirical insights continue to challenge researchers’ thinkingabout where, how, and under what conditions spatial mismatch is man-ifest. Some research on the Boston metropolitan area yields interestingfindings. Like many cities, Boston has experienced loss of manufactur-ing firms to other locations and growth of new employment centers insuburban areas.17 Boston has also been the subject of previous spatialmismatch studies, with some authors supporting the applicability of thespatial mismatch hypothesis and others asserting that the hypothesisdoes not apply.18 But Boston also has an important exceptional profilefor investigations of urban unemployment; it is one of very few cities inthe United States where the number of jobs exceeds the number of resi-dents.19 Furthermore, the areas of Boston with relatively high numbersof Black residents may have a different level of proximity to employmentcenters than in other cities. According to Cohn and Fossett, in Boston“blacks are physically near more jobs than Whites are. This finding holdsdespite analysis being restricted to consider only entry-level blue-collarjobs.” If a large number of entry-level job openings are near heavy con-centrations of unemployment and are not being accessed, as Cohn andFosset suggest, this strongly indicates that an important explanatoryvariable is missing from those spatial mismatch explanations that focusonly on geographic proximity. If social networks play an important part



in employment levels, as suggested by O’Regan and Quigley, Holzer andIhlanfeldt, and Arnott, both the theory and empirical findings of spatialmismatch may be advanced by further theoretical and empirical work onthe impact of social networks.

The Emergence of the Concept of “Opportunity Structures” as a Social-Network-Aware Alternative to “Human Capital”

Research agendas stemming from the process by which people acquireskills have also become intertwined with research into social networks.The most widely known concept intended to express acquisition of skillsis “human capital” and this term in its narrow sense refers to the ideathat people “invest” in the building of skills and other attributes relatedto productivity.20

The idea that people may spend on themselves looking to the futureis not controversial. However, “human capital” has become heavily cri-tiqued because of its association with what can be called “the HumanCapital Theory” since the introduction of that theory by Mincer (1958),Schultz (1960), and Becker (1964). Human Capital Theory is a series ofrelated hypotheses about the relationship between choice, productivity,and income. The original theoretical assertions, as presented by JacobMincer, were that differences in earnings were explained by individuals’investment in their human capital and that “the process of investment issubject to free choice.”21

The application of the term “human capital” was expanded two yearslater by Theodore Schultz. In his 1960 presidential address to theAmerican Economic Association, Schultz continued the emphasis on thelinks between human capital investment and productivity, urging atten-tion to five forms of human capital investment—health, formal educa-tion, on-the-job training, adult study programs, and migration. In thisaddress and in his subsequent 1961 article in the American EconomicReview, Schultz emphasized that not only individuals but also varioussocial institutions invest in human capital.22 Subsequently, Gary Beckerexpanded on the assertions about the link between choice, skill develop-ment, productivity, and wages (with an emphasis on on-the-job-training)in a 1962 article and in his well-known 1964 book, Human Capital.

Research associated with the Human Capital Theory expanded in the1970s and since then has been a conceptual framework for many worksin labor economics, economic development, and other fields. But fromthe time that Mincer’s paper appeared through the present, critiquesemerged about numerous aspects of the implicit and explicit content and



reasoning within the Theory. A wide variety of criticisms emerged aboutthe links between choice, access to human capital development opportu-nities, the quality of teaching available, the nature of skill-building, jobrequirements, racial and gender discrimination in employment opportu-nities, and earnings.23

While the idea that people invest in the building of skills and otherattributes related to future income and other future goals remains a cen-tral idea within labor economics, factors that critics have emphasized asalternatives (or additions) to the original Human Capital Theorists’explanations of wage differentials, productivity, and decision-making,have been parental resources, cultural factors, learning from peergroups, variations in school quality, variations in the education agendasof schools, social expectations, role models, race, gender, unionization,and many other dynamics. As Stephen Steinberg summarized, “the pit-fall of the human capital approach is not in exploring human factors thatyield economic dividends, but in treating these factors in a vacuum,apart from the constellation of historical, political, social, and economicfactors with which they are inextricably bound.”24

This has led some theorists to seek alternative ways of presenting therelationship between choice and economic outcomes. In 1995, GeorgeGalster and Sean Killen proposed an alternative conceptual frameworkfor understanding the links between choice and the goals for which for-ward-looking investment is pursued.25 Galster and Killen’s frameworkidentifies “process” and “prospect” dimensions of opportunity, callingthese “opportunity structures” and “opportunity sets.” They explain:

The process dimension of opportunity refers to the way markets, institu-tions, and service delivery systems (e.g., the social welfare or educationalsystem, legal and illegal labor markets, the criminal justice system, or thehousing market) utilize and modify the innate and acquired characteris-tics of participants. The panoply of markets, institutions, and systems thatact on and convert personal attributes into outputs affecting socialadvancement we call the “opportunity structure.” . . . The prospect dimen-sion of opportunity refers to the prospective socioeconomic outcomes(likely streams of future income, consumption, and utility) that peoplebelieve will occur if they make particular decisions regarding education orwork, for instance. These estimated outcomes will be influenced both bythe person’s indelible endowments (e.g., race) and by acquired attributes(e.g., education). But they are also shaped by the person’s subjective per-ceptions of how the opportunity structure will judge and (perhaps) trans-form these attributes . . . that person’s opportunity set.



With regard to the objective aspects of opportunity, Galster and Killenemphasize the contextual interaction between personal attributes andsystem structures. “The opportunity structure specifies which personalcharacteristics matter and to what degree in opening up or limiting eco-nomic prospects of individuals.” Social networks are recognized as play-ing key roles in opportunity structures: “Especially important in theopportunity structure are local social networks . . . which shape the nor-mative and informational context of decision making.” (italics added)

Social networks also play an important role in opportunity sets.Galster and Killen call attention to “two crucial assumptions implicit inour conceptual models: (1) that decisions are made on the basis of per-ceived opportunities and (2) that decisions are influenced by social net-works and conditions manifesting themselves at the neighborhoodscale.”26 They also note the important role of these networks for youth.“Perceptions of options and prospective payoffs . . . are not formed in asocial vacuum; on the contrary, both firsthand experience with and sec-ondhand information about the opportunity structure are potent deter-minants of values and aspirations.”27

Social Networks and Social Capital—Moving Beyond Vagueness

As the previous pages show, the information channels and normsemphasized by social networks and social capital are at the cutting edgeof several aspects of current labor market theory. Clarity about theseterms is essential for the quality of future theoretical and practical dis-course on labor markets, education, economic development, inequality,and other topics in economics. This section discusses the conceptualfoundations and rhetorical uses of “social capital” and “social networks”before moving to discussion of ways to clarify the various social forcesexamined by social scientists and the public policy discourse thatemerges from studies of social capital.

The term “social capital” was used by the urban scholar Jane Jacobs in1961, re-emerged in writings by the economist Glenn Loury in 1977,28

and was more broadly articulated and more widely popularized by thesociologist James Coleman in 1988.29 The image of “social networks”underlies the concept of social capital, as was evidenced in the descrip-tions that Jacobs and Loury gave for social capital. Jacobs wrote, “net-works are a city’s irreplaceable social capital. Whenever the capital islost, from whatever cause the income from it disappears, never to returnuntil and unless new capital is slowly and chancily accumulated.”30

Similarly, looking back upon his influential 1977 article, Loury reflected:



In earlier work, I introduced the term “social capital” to suggest a modifi-cation of the standard human capital theory in economics. My modificationwas intended to provide a richer context within which to analyze racialinequality. I formalized the observation that family and community back-grounds can play an important role, alongside factors like individual abilityand human capital investments, in determining individual achievement . . .Because access to developmental resources is mediated through race-segregated social networks, an individual’s opportunities to acquire skillsdepend on present and past attainments by others in the same racial group.31

Thus, as has been recognized by some recent scholars,32 social networksare key aspects of social capital. The connections between people and thepatterns that these connections form—both of which lend themselves tothe visual metaphor of networks—constitute the media within whichsocial capital exists. The basic concept behind the term social capital isthe idea that various non-physical things of value (positive or negative)linked to economic outcomes are contained in relationships betweenpeople. Accordingly, each use of the social capital concept involves eitherthe transmission of some non-physical content through relationships, orthe exercise of the non-physical content within relationships as part ofachieving an outcome.

This dual possibility of transmission through networks and exerciseof content in networks lies behind some of the confusion about socialcapital. Writings that focus on transmission of content, such as the studyof the role of information and referrals in recent labor market literature,tend to use the terminology of social networks, while writings that focuson the exercise of content within relationships, such as the study ofshared norms and trust in the economic development literature, tend torefer to social capital. Yet each is a reflection of the existence, economicsignificance, and use of networks.

Various authors tend to give definitions of social capital and socialnetworks that fit their immediate emphases and purposes. In some liter-ature the emphasis is on ties between individuals. In other literature theemphasis is on ties between individuals and groups, while others focuson networks between groups. Still other studies focus upon ties betweenindividuals or groups and various political, religious, or communityinstitutions. Recognizing that all of these involve networks of relation-ships clarifies part of the confusion around social capital.

However, part of the complexity of the network concept usage is thatin many cases it is invoked not as a precise definition but instead as aheuristic device to leverage other larger socioeconomic understandings.As noted several decades ago by Charles Tilly, social scientists have used



the language of social networks not only in attempts to articulate precisemeanings, but also, in many cases, to gain rhetorical leverage to get theirreading audiences to consider various understandings about the impactof social context on the subjects they studied. Tilly stated:

In recent years, sociologists, anthropologists and other students of socialbehavior have made considerable use of the network metaphor . . . In factthey have made three different uses of it: as a peg, as a witching wand, andas a blueprint . . . writers have used the network analogy simply to indi-cate that they were dealing with sets of social relationships which did notfall neatly into bounded groups . . . without precisely identifying the rela-tionship(s) which define the network.

He concludes his typology of the rhetorical use of the network metaphor,stating that “a blueprint provides a simplified but precise representationof the object at hand.”33

J. Clyde Mitchell also discussed the range of metaphorical uses of thenetwork concept and the lack of specificity in many writings. Concernedabout the overall advancement of the social network research agenda,Mitchell noted that the diversity of uses had created difficulty in label-ing, comparing, and analyzing different dynamics addressed in socialnetwork literature. Mitchell argued for greater precision in the descrip-tion of network characteristics.

The image of “network of social relations” to represent a complex set ofinter-relationships in a social system has had a long history. This use of“network,” however, is purely metaphorical and is very different from thenotion of a social network as a specific set of linkages among a defined setof persons . . . As a metaphor, the notion of “network” subsumes, andtherefore obscures, several different aspects of social relationships such asconnectedness, intensity and status and role. But the metaphorical use ofthe word, however common it is, should not prevent us from appreciatingthat it is possible to . . . use the concept in more specific and defined ways.34

To achieve greater descriptive and analytical precision, Mitchell pro-posed that all network dynamics could be described in reference to twobroad categories, morphology and interaction, comprising nine specificcharacteristics. Mitchell’s contribution to social network theory appearsto have been lost or overlooked by many current theorists. His book isnot mentioned in the thirty pages of references in Social Capital: CriticalPerspectives (2000) by Baron, Field, and Schuller; neither is it mentionedin the references for any of the twelve essays contained in Social Capital:



Theory and Research (2001) edited by Lin, Cook, and Burt; nor is it men-tioned in the references for any of the nineteen Working Papers for theWorld Bank’s Social Capital Initiative. His ideas deserve resurrection sothat different researchers’ uses of “social capital” and “social networks”can be compared within an overall framework, adequately discussed interms of different social capital/social network dynamics that may over-lap, enhance each other, or act counter to each other, and ultimately sothat the ideas generated in the literature can be translated into effectivepublic policy.

As descried by Mitchell, the first characteristic of networks, “anchor-age,” refers to the fact that “normally a network must be traced fromsome initial starting point; it must be anchored on a reference point.” 35

In some studies, the reference point is on the individuals, in others it ison the affinity groups, while in still others it is on the even larger unitsof population. The second characteristic listed by Mitchell is “reachabil-ity” (it can also be thought of as “access”), which he describes as “theextent to which [a person] can use . . . relationships [with others] to con-tact people who are important to him or alternatively, the extent towhich people who are important to him can contact him through theserelationships.” Mitchell’s third category, “density,” is the degree to which“a large proportion [of a set of persons] know one another . . . Density . . . is used in the sense in which completeness is used in graph theory,i.e., the extent to which links which could possibly exist among personsdo in fact exist.” The last morphological characteristic is “range,” a char-acteristic that is applicable only when the network is anchored on a per-son. Range is the number of people in direct contact with the person onwhom a network is anchored.

Among the interactional elements of networks, Mitchell presents“content” as the first category; however, he actually refers to two types ofcontent in his article, relational content and exchange content. The dif-ference between these types is important enough to think of them as sep-arate characteristics of content. Relational content comprises “themeanings which the persons in the network attribute to their relation-ships.” The other type—“exchange content”—Mitchell credits anotherauthor for articulating as “the overt elements of the transactions betweenindividuals . . . which constitute their interaction.”36

The next interactional element is “directedness.” This feature of net-works describes the flow of the interaction under study, specifically,“whether the relationship between the people in the network should beconsidered either as oriented from one to the other or reciprocal.”“Durability,” another interactional characteristic presented by Mitchell,



refers to the length of time in which a relationship persists (either inactive or latent status). “Intensity” is “the degree to which individuals areprepared to honour obligations, or feel free to exercise the rights impliedin their link to some other person.” Finally, “frequency” is the number ofcontacts between people in a network within a given period.

Following Mitchell’s lead, it is possible to gain useful perspective onthe overall universe of the social capital/social network literature and tocompare the characteristics of individual studies or sets of studies to oth-ers. While all social capital/social network literature shares an emphasison relationships, networks, and the exchange of valued content, differ-ences in the research question being pursued, and the various socialdynamics under study, manifest themselves within the literature as dif-ferences in the morphological features of networks, the interactional con-tent being studied, and the characteristics of other interactional elements.

Using Mitchell’s morphology and interaction framework, the labormarket social network issues discussed early in this chapter no longerseem to be adrift in a morass of vague and arbitrarily changing defini-tions of social networks and social capital. Instead, the research ques-tion, “how do individuals find jobs?” that underlies this particular labormarket literature, and the phenomenon under examination, i.e., thefinding that most individuals find jobs through information provided bycurrent employees at the hiring firm,37 have distinct implications for themorphology and interaction characteristics of social capital that areinvestigated. The labor market social networks are anchored on the indi-vidual job seeker rather than upon groups or communities that are theanchorage found in many of the trust-based or norms-based studies ofsocial capital in the economic development literature.38 Range andreachability are important variables of the job seeker network, since thekey dynamic for the job prospects of the job-seeker is the ability to haveinformational contact with currently employed workers. In other sub-jects of social capital investigation, reachability is also important in stud-ies of the role of social capital in education and in studies of the creationand distribution of material resources;39 however, it is less important instudies focusing on norms and trust (since often the groups upon whichthe analysis is based are defined in terms of their already existing normsand trust). In contrast, density (the degree to which people with directconnections to an individual know each other) is an important aspect ofnorm- and trust-based social capital (since network density reinforcestrust and norms). However, density is a possible impediment to the jobseeker’s job-search networks. If the job seeker’s contacts all know eachother, then the job seeker will quickly run out of new information.



The interactional dynamics of interest in studies of job search net-works focus primarily on a unidirectional transfer of content—a trans-fer of information either to the job seeker or to the employer—ratherthan a bi-directional flow, as is the case with trust or norms (where con-tents include expressed value, sanctions, and visible behavior). Whilerelational content is very important in the norm- and trust-based socialcapital studies (which often involve obligations through reciprocity ormembership), relational content is not as important in job-search net-works. Granovetter argues, for example, that weak ties (ties that have lesscontent) may be more effective in job search than stronger ties.40 In jobsearch networks, durability, intensity, and frequency are all less importthan they are in the social capital literature that focuses on trust, norms,and skill development. Overall, the identification of differences in mor-phology and interaction capture the “feel” of different social capital stud-ies while maintaining and explaining their common roots in networks.

Conclusion

Studies of social capital—the transmission of economically importantcontent through social networks and the exercise of content existingwithin relationships—have important implications for our understand-ings about markets, for the accumulation of assets, and for other eco-nomic outcomes. A large body of literature has emerged recognizing thisimportance. However, discourse among scholars and the effective trans-lation of theory and empirical research into effective public policy is stillproblematic and would greatly benefit from a framework that moreeffectively delineates the specific network characteristics under investi-gation. This essay presents such a framework. The task at hand is notonly to expand insights about the interaction of economic outcomes andsocial content, but also—just as importantly for scholarly work—toavoid overstatement of findings, to build awareness of counter-movingdynamics within the various aspects of social capital, to limit misinter-pretation of findings, and to prevent misapplication of concepts andresearch findings. Social capital is multifaceted and yet, within an appro-priate framework, it has the potential to be an intellectually tractableaccumulation of ideas that, with appropriate attention to content andcontours, can yield better insights into many socioeconomic outcomesand possibilities. To achieve these goals, the research of the future mustunderstand the unifying conceptual foundations of social capital andsocial networks, must be cognizant of—and explicit about—the varyingforms that social networks may take when different subject matter is



being investigated, and must be critically aware of the ways in which theimportant forces of race, space, and inequality affect the morphologyand interactional content of social networks.

Notes

1. See R. Putnam, Making Democracy Work (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1993) and “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining SocialCapital,” Journal of Democracy 61 (1995), 65–78.

2. A. Portes, “Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in ModernSociology,” Annual Review of Sociology, 24, no. 1 (1998).

3. T. Schuller, et al., “Social Capital: A Review and Critique,” in Social Capital:Critical Perspectives, S. Baron, J. Field, and T. Schuller (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2000), 35.

4. N. Lin, “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital,” in Social Capital:Theory and Research, N. Lin, K. Cook, and R. Burt (eds.) (New York: Aldinede Gruyter, 2001), 9.

5. See S. Durlauf and M. Fafchamps, “Social Capital,” in Handbook of EconomicGrowth, P. Aghion and S. Durlauf (eds.) (Amsterdam: North Holland, 2006).

6. S. Szreter, “Social Capital, the Economy, and Education in HistoricalPerspective,” in Social Capital: Critical Perspectives (New York, OxfordUniversity Press, 2000), 58.

7. Summaries of the search approach literature have been written byMortensen, Devine and Kiefer, and Lippman and McCall.

8. For the mathematical derivation of this conclusion, see Great Expectations:The Theory of Optimal Stopping, Y. S. Chow, et. al. (Dover Press, 1991)

9. T. Devine and N. Kiefer, Empirical Labor Economics: The Search Approach(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 308.

10. Ibid., 9–10.11. K. O’Regan and J. Quigley, “Labor Market Access and Labor Market

Outcomes for Urban Youth,” Journal of Regional Science and UrbanEconomics 21 (1991), 278.

12. Ibid., 279.13. Ibid.14. H. Holzer and K. Ihlandfeldt, “Spatial Factors and the Employment of Blacks

at the Firm Level,” New England Economic Review (May/June 1996).15. R. Arnott, “Economic Theory and the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis,” Urban

Studies 35, no. 7 (1998), 1172.16. Ibid.17. For a recent discussion of these changes, see Chapter 4 in The Boston

Renaissance: Race, Space and Economic Change in an American Metropolis byB. Bluestone and M. Stevenson (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000).

18. See Bluestone, et al. (1992) for a study supporting the existence of spatialmismatch in Boston, and Cohn and Fossett (1996) for a study concludingthat spatial mismatch is not pertinent to Boston.



19. Source of information: conversation between author and Greg Perkins andJohn Avault of the Boston Redevelopment Authority Research Division,June 1997.

20. M. Blaug, The Methodology of Economics (Cambridge, England: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1980), 225.

21. J. Mincer, “Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution,”Journal of Political Economy 56 (1958), 301; P. McNulty, The Origins andDevelopment of Labor Economics (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984), 193.

22. T. Schultz, “Investment in Human Capital,” American Economic Review 51(March 1961), 1–17.

23. J. Jacobsen, “Human Capital Theory,” in The Elgar Companion to FeministEconomics, J. Peterson and M. Lewis (eds.) (Northampton, Mass.: EdwardElgar Publishing, 1999), 445.

24. S. Steinberg, “Human Capital: A Critique,” The Review of Black PoliticalEconomy, (Summer 1985), 69, 73.

25. G. Galster and S. Killen, “The Geography of Metropolitan Opportunity: AReconnaissance and Conceptual Framework,” Housing Policy Debate 6, no. 1(1995).

26. Ibid., 12.27. Ibid., 3628. G. Loury, “A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences,” in Women,

Minorities and Employment Discrimination, P. Wallace and A. LaMond,(eds.) (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977), 153–88.

29. J. Coleman, “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital,” TheAmerican Journal of Sociology 94, Supplement P. S96 (1988). Colemanwrites: “Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, buta variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: They allconsist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actionsof actors who are within the structure. The term social capital signals to theanalyst and to the reader that something of value has been produced forthose actors who have this resource available and that the value depends onsocial organization.”

30. Jacobs, Life and Death of Great American Cities, 138.31. Loury, Anatomy of Racial Inequality, 102–3.32. For example, see Lin “Building a Network Theory of Social Capital” and

Durlauf, “Social Capital.”33. C. Tilly, Foreword, in Networks of Contact: The Portuguese and Toronto,

Grace M. Anderson (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press,1974), x–xiii

34. J. C. Mitchell, “The Concept and Use of Social Networks,” in Social Networksin Urban Situations: Analyses of Personal Relationships in Central AfricanTowns, J. Clyde Mitchell (ed.), (Manchester: Manchester University Press,1969), 1–2.

35. Ibid., 11–12.



36. B. Kapferer, “Norms and the Manipulation of Relationships in a WorkContext,” in Social Networks in Urban Situations, J. Clyde Mitchell (ed.)(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1969).

37. See M. Granovetter, Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974); J. Montgomery, “SocialNetworks and Labor-Market Outcomes: Toward an Economic Analysis,”American Economic Review, (December 1991); and R. E. Williams, “SocialNetworks and Labor Market Outcomes: Theoretical Expansions andEconometric Analysis,” (diss., University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2004).

38. See, for example, Putnam, Making Democracy Work, 171, 177. Putnamwrites: “Trust lubricates cooperation. The greater the level of trust within acommunity, the greater the likelihood of cooperation . . . In all societies . . .dilemmas of collective action hamper attempts to cooperate for mutual ben-efit, whether in politics or in economics. Third party enforcement is an inad-equate solution to this problem. Voluntary cooperation depends on socialcapital.” Also, P. Maskell, “Social Capital, Innovation, and Competitiveness”in Social Capital: Critical Perspectives, S. Baron, et. al. (Oxford, England:Oxford University Press, 2000), 111. Maskell states, “Social capital refers tothe values and beliefs that citizens share in their everyday dealings and whichgive meaning and provide design for all sorts of rules.”

39. See, for example, J. Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, MA:Belknap Press, 1990), 300. Coleman writes, “social capital is the set ofresources that inhere in family relations and in community social organiza-tion and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child oryoung person.”

40. See Granovetter, Getting a Job.



Chapter 5

Social Capital, Race, and the Future of Inner-City

Neighborhoods

James Jennings

Social capital generally refers to individual, community, or familialnetworks that reflect substantive degrees of trust between the par-

ties, and can be used to build, facilitate, or maintain cooperation formutually beneficial economic, social, or political objectives. Social cap-ital can take various forms.The concept of social capital has gained anexplosive amount of attention in recent years in the fields of politicalscience, urban affairs, and planning, as well as in the popular media.1

The American Journal of Planning devoted a symposium to this topicin 2004 titled, “Using Social Capital to Help Integrate Planning Theory,Research, and Practice.” The 1999 annual meeting of the Urban AffairsAssociation was dedicated to the theme of social capital. A search on“social capital” in the papers database of the American Political ScienceAssociation shows that for the years 2003 and 2004 there were 1,079formal presentations containing the phrase. This number surpassedphrases such as race (945), inequality (650), justice (992), injustice(262), empowerment (216), discrimination (570), and racism (182).Although it did not surpass the word “class” (1,119), social capital isnow a key concept in research spanning many areas.

Given this attention, how is social capital discussed in terms of con-tinual racial and spatial inequalities in urban society? And how doesthis idea inform public policy regarding neighborhood revitalization or


local economic development? Also, is the building of social capital aneffective alternative to class or neighborhood mobilization in strugglesfor equitable shares of social and economic benefits in urban society?Social capital has emerged as a popular response to these questions.

Though focused on Finland, the claim of Hilde Coffee and BennyGeys is heard among scholars studying U.S. urban society:

Social capital is indeed an important resource available to societies—next to human and physical capital—and is argued to have a beneficialinfluence on various economic, social and political phenomena . . .First, social capital improves performance . . . citizens become moreactive and effective in demanding good government where social capitalis higher . . . Second . . . [it] generates a commitment within individuals tomake their society work and increase their willingness to make necessarycompromises.2

For example, in their chapter in this anthology, Turcotte and Silka notethat, “increasingly the notion of strengthening a community’s economicbase is being framed in terms of the language of social capital.Community development efforts have increasingly adopted the lan-guage of social capital as a way to understand what communities mustdo to prosper.”3

Advocates of social capital suggest that increasing it, or creating it,can enhance the economic prosperity of impoverished neighborhoodsbut it can also be useful for economic development in the internationalarena. Svendsen and Svendsen see social capital as the “missing link,”and they see nonmaterial productive factor as the basis of a new eco-nomic theory (dubbed Bourdieuconomics in honor of the late theorist ofsocial capital, Pierre Bourdieu) that, through trust, facilitates entrepre-neurship in some countries such as Denmark. Regarding the UnitedStates, Putnam proposes, “social capital is generally distributedunequally—more trusting, more joining, more voting, and so on—among the better-off segments of society. Citizens who lack access tofinancial and human capital also lack access to social capital.”4 AvisVidal is more direct and argues that, “developing social capital (i.e.,assets) for poor neighborhoods is one approach to the broader task ofbuilding community capacity.”5 She adds, “these neighborhoods areinstitutionally impoverished, as well; they have fewer formal organiza-tions, and the ones that exist are less likely to provide access to oppor-tunities for social, educational, and economic advancement than arecomparable groups in suburban, middle-class communities.”6 In a sim-ilar vein, Light claims that “where poor people have social capital, they



are better off. For instance, in neighborhoods whose residents havemore organizational memberships, workers display a lower likelihoodof long-term joblessness.”7

Alejandro Portes and Patricia Landolt write: “Liberals and conserva-tives alike now celebrate social capital as the key to success in a myriadof domestic issues—from public education, aging, and mental health tothe battle against inner city crime and the rejuvenation of America’ssmall towns.”8 Michael Woolcock and Deepa Narayan argue that socialcapital, including family ties, friends, and associates, can be tapped orutilized or leveraged for material gains.9 Robert Putnam and KristinGoss (2002) propose further, “social networks create value, both individ-ual and collective.”10 Two other writers, Sirianni and Friedland, iteratethe value of social capital for resolving economic problems facing inner-city neighborhoods: “Social capital refers to those stocks of social trust,norms and networks that people can draw upon to solve common prob-lems. Networks of civic engagement, such as neighborhood associations,sports clubs, and cooperatives, are an essential form of social capital, andthe denser these networks, the more likely that members of a commu-nity will cooperate for mutual benefit.”11

Another group of researchers write that, “recent theoretical develop-ments suggest that neighborhood social capital originates with the for-mation of bonds among residents, which in turn empower them toprotect and pursue their collective interests as they engage external insti-tutions and organizations that might help them to resist threats to theirwell-being.”12 They add, “bonding social capital is a necessary [my ital-ics] antecedent for the development of the more powerful form of bridg-ing social capital.”13 As such it can spell economic relief and greatercommunitarian harmony in inner-city neighborhoods.

Social capital even has “capacity for storage,”14 according to IvanLight. He proceeds to state, remarkably, that:

social capital is a kind of philosopher’s stone that, costing no money andavailable even to the humble, can metamorphose into rare and precious val-ues. The medieval alchemists sought to change lead into gold. They hopedto turn something valueless into something precious. They failed. It appears,however, that in social capital, the world has a nonmonetized resource thatmetamorphoses into money, property, education, and high culture.”15

Putnam tempers this hyperbole by noting that while social capital is abase for leadership and entrepreneurship, “hovering above individualleaders, and also influencing social capital, is the state.”16 In spite of thiscaveat, social capital is treated as the key factor in ensuring that poor

SOCIAL CAPITAL, RACE,AND THE FUTURE 89


neighborhoods are wholesome. To quote Chupp, “in the debate overpoor neighborhoods and the ills of society as a whole, social capital hasbecome something of a wonder drug.”17

When social capital is presented as a wonder drug to alleviate theimpact of structural inequalities, it thereby becomes a rhetorical mecha-nism that dismisses institutional and policy causes of structural inequal-ities. Smith and Kulynich show in their chapter that this very term, socialcapital, actually discourages structural analysis of social and economicissues. A similar point is made by Canadian political scientist KarenBridgett Murray in her article. She notes that poverty is not approachedas a part of broad political and economic institutions but rather on thebasis of individual capacities. In other words, when issues like poverty,joblessness, teen pregnancy, poor public health, and inferior schoolingare studied in reference to the particular level of social capital in a groupor neighborhood, it essentially limits structural or class explanations andthereby dismisses consequent political mobilization aimed at resolvingthese problems as unnecessary.18 Although James DeFilippis (2001) raisesa concern that urban scholars are placing too much emphasis on “howsocial capital can be generated in low-income communities in the UnitedStates,” social capital is now treated as a cultural and economic resourcethat is vital for responding to the effects of spatial and racial inequality.19

Social Capital and the End of Politics

The current focus on social capital as a response to structural inequalitiesis problematic for several reasons. First, it is not a concept that can easilybe measured and is therefore open to a wide range of definitions byresearchers. Robert Silverman observes, “ironically, within the field ofcommunity development, social capital is a somewhat amorphous con-cept, although it retains a Teflon® quality. It is considered to be requisitefor sustainable community development while its substance remains elu-sive.”20 This is why Andrew Greely states that, “the term ‘social capital’ hasbeen misused and abused in American social science, with little regardfor its precise meaning . . . ”21 The Teflon® quality of social capital can leadto unsupported claims. As noted by Durlauf and Fafchamps in theirreview of social capital as a factor explaining economic growth, “we arguethat empirical social capital studies are often flawed and make claims thatare in excess of what is justified by the statistical exercises reported.”22

Second, as Silverman points out, the mobilization of social capital isbound by the social context of its location. In essence, social capital is theproduct of values that are embedded in local context . . . there are no



generic forms of social capital that can be transferred from setting toanother.”23 In other words, social capital is not uniform. Based on a studyof community development corporations managed by Blacks and non-profits managed by Whites in Jacksonville, Florida, Silverman discov-ered that these sectors held different values, perceptions about race, andrace relations. The social capital evident in both cases was directly linkedto organizational values and institutional perceptions that reflect thestructural positions of both sectors. The social capital evident in bothorganizational settings, despite operating in similar spheres of activities,did not point toward collaboration or building enjoining networks.

This weakness can be witnessed in the claim in “Inner-city Ills” inCivic Dictionary (2004):

Urban renewal and public housing policies, along with the exodus of blackmiddle classes from the inner city, have depleted stocks of social capitalavailable, and thus impaired school performance, job referral, drug-andcrime-avoidance, and self-help. Equal opportunity strategies and socialwelfare programs are unlikely to succeed unless they can be coupled withways to replenish remaining stocks of social capital, such as those repre-sented by the black church.24

This sweeping statement is inaccurate for two reasons. First, an exodusof the Black middle class is merely presumed. This is not the case inmany inner cities. Second, it posits that social capital found in Blackchurches can automatically be applied to community problems.Recently, sociologist Omar M. Roberts found that the social networks inchurches are not necessarily transferred or transferable toward alleviat-ing neighborhood problems.25 His case study of churches in an area ofDorchester, a predominantly Black and low-income section of Boston,shows that in some instances these institutions see themselves as apartfrom the surrounding neighborhoods. The assertion above is also inac-curate because it ignores the rich institutional networks, businesses,neighborhood associations, and civic groups operating in many impov-erished communities.

What I refer to as the de-racialization of social capital is anotherproblem under this topic. Some researchers ignore racial and ethnic dif-ferences in how social capital is reflected in a range of situations. RodneyE. Hero shares this concern.

Most analyses of social capital do not adequately confront conditionsassociated with race; as a result, they come to conclusions more benignthan a fuller assessment warrants. Social-capital analyses implicitly



emphasize absolute or aggregate indicators of equality and overlook orunderstate relative outcomes for minorities. They thus obscure importantdimensions of the continuing inequality by race and mislead us in ourthinking about equality and democracy in American politics.26

Hero utilizes census data to highlight the limitations of state- andnational-level surveys measuring social capital and to show that socialcapital is not necessarily associated with racial equality. He concludesthat a focus on social capital, and the extant methodologies for analyz-ing such, can limit and discourage discussions about continuing racialinequalities in U.S. society and that “by not disaggregating along raciallines, social-capital analyses incorrectly make strong, broad claimsabout the dynamics of equalization while masking what may be a situ-ation of racial inequality.”27 Hero shows a disconnect between stateswith relatively high levels of social capital and conditions that suggestracial inequality in the areas of education, public health, and the crim-inal justice system.

One could also rely on historical literature to show that social capitalhas actually been a force for racial and ethnic inequality in U.S. society.The Bedolla chapter in this anthology summarizes literature showingthat social capital has a particular racial history in the United States. Byreferring to this literature, she describes many situations where socialcapital served as a glue to maintain solidarity among groups protectingvarious forms of white-skin privileges. The social base that cementedoppressive political policies and economic practices was precisely thebonding, trust, and cooperation among representatives of White inter-ests. Bedolla writes, for example, that “many of the civic organizationsPutnam mentions—Kiwanis, the Rotary Club, etc.—banned the partici-pation of both women and people of color. If social capital is aboutbuilding relationships within your community, these racially-biased pro-grams have had important effects on what that community looked likeand who (racially) was allowed to live in it. It makes intuitive sense, then,that race and race policies are intimately related to the creation andmaintenance of community-level social capital in the United States.”28 InPlural but Equal, the late Harold Cruse describes numerous episodes inU.S. history of Blacks pursuing self help that reflected social capital inthe form of strong bonds and trust within these groups. He documentswidespread and vitriolic White resistance to Black self-help initiatives,both on the part of masses of Whites and institutional elites.29

The history of political machines provides other examples of howinterests holding power sought to keep Black political challenges from



gaining saliency. These challenges emerged from the group conscious-ness of Black people seeking to establish social equality in U.S. society.Literature such as Ira Katznelson’s Black Men, White Cities (1973),Gilbert Osofsky’s Harlem: The Making of a Negro Ghetto (1966), orKenneth Kusmer’s A Ghetto takes shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930(1976), describe Black resistance to political machines who sought tokeep local government as beneficial for White citizens loyal to themachine. These examples (and there are many more) show that whensocial capital represents a base for bonding but leads to political mobi-lization that challenges the status-quo interests—and its “gatekeepers”—threatened by impending change will resist it.30

The term gatekeepers is borrowed from Chavez and Fraga in theirdiscussion of individuals and processes that have the capability ofassisting or resisting social capital in communities of color from beingutilized to gain group benefits.31 It is also discussed in the chapter byBedolla in this collection. While these authors focus on contemporarygatekeepers, the concept and discussion is applicable to the behaviorand responses of urban political machine leaders toward communitiesof color in earlier periods.

Resistance on the part of gatekeepers was also directed at other groupsof color, as well as the White working class. In Making Democracy WorkBetter, Richard A. Couto and Catherine S. Guthrie show how state gov-ernment and private partners thwarted the building of social bondsbetween workers aligned against corporate power. By looking at the caseof poverty-stricken areas in the Appalachia region of the United Statesthe authors show that the building of social capital, or bonding amongworkers and poor people, was perceived as a serious problem for wealthand landowning interests.32

Finally, the call for social capital as a strategy for improving livingconditions is problematic because it presupposes apathy and civic dis-connectedness with inner-city neighborhoods. In fact, “there is anassumption that, whatever the state of engagement is in general, it mustbe worse for African Americans and for Hispanics, who are certainlythought to be less connected, less civically engaged, and less well-equipped to compete in mainstream political processes.”33 Fuchs, et al.,offer a similar criticism. “The argument is simple: in communities wheresocial capital has become scarce, political participation is invariably low.The practical implications of this argument are clear: increase social cap-ital in poor African American and immigrant city neighborhoods andpolitical participation will increase as well.”34 And further, “the conven-tional social capital thesis falls short as a fully satisfying explanation of



the decline of political participation, applied especially to urban democ-racy. It falls short because it is premised on an inadequate conceptualiza-tion of the urban tradition of political participation, which is rootedmore in conflict than in consensus building.”35

A presumption of apathy within such groups and their neighbor-hoods is not new, according to sociologist Daniel J. Monti, Jr.,36 but canbe explained in part by national and international surveys that focus ontraditional measures of civic participation, including membership inorganizations or associations, or electoral activities, or political atten-tiveness.37 Macro-level surveys, however, can have limited application inlocal situations where racial-, class-, or gender-dynamics representmajor barriers to political participation. As noted by Foley, et al., aggre-gate statistics on the national level can obscure local realities and incor-rectly emphasize the importance of “associational density.”38

The degree of “associational density,” a major reflection of social cap-ital, can be irrelevant to political and economic barriers that stand in theway of full political and civic participation for many people. These barri-ers include unequal distribution of information about how to participatein the electoral arena, job restraints, gerrymandering, and intimidation.Furthermore, the important issues for the livelihood of working-classgroups are sometimes disconnected from electoral processes. Public par-ticipation and civic engagement in the pursuit of individual or groupagendas in working-class communities do not necessarily get played outin institutional venues. This means that solely utilizing traditional polit-ical or electoral variables to measure civic participation can make invisi-ble the participation of poor and working-class people. Rhonda Y.Williams makes an important distinction between consumption issuesand political issues:

Exploring activism at the point of consumption—that is, around housing,food, clothing, and daily life in community spaces—reveals the existence ofthese unacknowledged daily struggles and protests. Black community—ifnot electoral—struggles were increasingly being found in neighborhoodsaround consumption as well as political issues. In addition to struggles forvoting rights, school desegregation, and the opportunity to eat, sleep,swim, and play tennis wherever one liked, activists in northern and south-ern cities began to tackle a range of issues equally central to the achieve-ment of full citizenship: the right to adequate housing, income, medicalcare, food, and clothing.39

Robin Kelley uncovered a similar social dynamic in his case study ofracial interactions on segregated buses in Birmingham, Alabama in the



pre-World War II period. He concluded that protest on the part of Blackbus customers revolved around issues of respect and the relationshipbetween transportation and employment, not de-segregation, per se.40

The lesson in this literature is that examination of civic participation orsocial capital is incomplete if it only focuses on how people in low-income communities become involved with overtly electoral or organi-zational issues.41

Social Capital and Irony of Public Policy

Social capital is touted as a key ingredient in neighborhood revitalizationof impoverished areas because it encourages people to become engagedin the civic life of the community.Yet, and ironically, there are severalurban policy initiatives that serve to undermine civic participation inpoor and low-income neighborhoods. One public policy that discour-ages civic participation and weakens community-based organizations ininner-city neighborhoods is the Personal Responsibility and WorkReconciliation Act of 1996.42 Welfare reform has actually underminedcivic participation in Black and Latino urban communities that havehigh concentrations of families on public assistance. This effect occursby separating clients from the possibility of civic participation as a wayto enact social change, and ignoring the role of community-based orintermediary organizations in the mobilization of civic capacity.

Welfare reform is “anti-social capital” by virtue of its imposing man-dates on community-based organizations involving monitoring of wel-fare recipients, discouraging attention from employment and trainingstrategies that have proved effective in the past, encouraging a view ofpublic assistance recipients as dependent pariahs in communities, andignoring possibilities to leverage neighborhood assets and resources—found in many inner-city communities—as a way to generate economicmobility for poor and working-class families.43 Welfare reform does notemphasize civic participation and cooperative engagement in low-income neighborhoods but rather endorses and mandates a big brother,work-first frenzy philosophy that results in women and children remain-ing in poverty. This approach does nothing to strengthen the social fab-ric of neighborhoods.

In some communities the implementation of welfare reform is pur-sued in ways that actively prevent women from bonding and pursuingcollaborative actions for group advancement. The findings of a survey ofone hundred Latina women in Lawrence, Massachusetts during 1999and 2000 show that the state government responsible for implementing



welfare reform had no interest in helping women to become involvedand connected to their communities. The Massachusetts Departmentof Transitional Assistance has reflected a complete disregard for tap-ping the potential civic capacity of the Latinas studied, yet the womenin this group showed themselves to be hard-working, committed to thewell-being of their children, and quite knowledgeable of neighbor-hood issues.44

Gentrification strategies and attempts to de-concentrate poor peopleare also based on a presumption that inner-city neighborhoods lacksocial capital. Again, such policies actually destroy what people mightdescribe as social capital, or social fabric, in local places. Based on anextensive survey of residents in Minneapolis neighborhoods, EdwardGoetz shows how policies and practices to de-concentrate povertyresulted in a significant loss of social capital. He used a survey to askrespondents to agree or disagree with the following statement: “My child. . . plays with others in neighborhood.” An overwhelming 76% of resi-dents in the pre-move period agreed with this statement compared withonly 49% of the displaced residents. To another question—“In yourneighborhood in the past six months, how often did you . . . talk withyour neighbors?”—71% of residents responded affirmatively during thepre-move period but this dropped to 52% of those who had moved. Toa related question—“In this neighborhood, have your children been . . .involved in community activities?”—44% of the residents responded“yes” in the pre-move period but this rate dropped to 33% in the post-move period.45

Goetz illustrates an inconsistency between the call for social capital inlow-income communities and public policy. Regarding the city ofMinneapolis he found that:

Southeast Asian families living in north side public housing were morelikely than African-American families to like it and to value the commu-nity resources and support networks that had been created in the area.Deconcentration opponents among these families argued that dispersalwould destroy the networks upon which they, as recent immigrants,depended. These networks existed on two dimensions. First were the for-mal assistance organizations and service agencies on the north side,including the Hmong American Mutual Assistance Association, the LaoAssistance Center of Minnesota, and the Southeast Asian CommunityCouncil. In addition, the north side site was home to an array of socialservices established over time to assist public housing residents, includinga food shelf, adult education, and language services.46



Thus, we have a contradiction between endorsement of social capital asa way of increasing civic participation in low-income neighborhoods,and public policies that have the effects of weakening the organizationalpotential for local civic capacity.

Emphasis on social capital as a way to resolve spatial and racial inequal-ity also exposes the hypocrisy of government. There are instances whencitizens have banded together to appeal for government support onbehalf of a range of neighborhood issues, only to see government turn itsback. Such a case involves the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. SudhirAlladi Venkatesh highlights the struggles of residents in this massivepublic housing complex.47 Although many of the units at this Chicagosite were physically dilapidated, there were continual collective struggleson the part of residents to improve living conditions. But in the case ofresidents living in public housing, government, civic leadership, and theprivate sector turned their backs on these efforts. Residents had to fendfor themselves in attempts to improve living conditions in their ownhousing and communities. The author shows that there was no lack ofsocial capital among residents in this situation; the key problem was thatthe government and private sector ignored—indeed, were threatenedby—the daily struggles of poor and low-income residents.

This story is repeated in the case of the Cabrini-Green neighborhoodin the same city. Larry Bennett and Adolph Reed, Jr., observe that citygovernment was aggressive in portraying a predominantly Black andlow-income neighborhood as lacking in family and friendship networksor neighborhood associations. It was described as a place bereft of aresponsible and effective leaders and where people were socially iso-lated.48 Here too, and based on interviews with residents and directinvolvement in neighborhood issues, the authors find a “counter-por-trait,” rich in social capital and individual and collective struggles to bet-ter one’s community.49

There are two presumptions associated with the utilization of socialcapital and its claim as a wonder drug. One is that inner cities have rel-atively limited social and economic resources. The second is that a mid-dle-class sector has abandoned these communities. A number of studiesillustrate, however, that while inner cities may have experienced anincrease in class stratification, this does not necessarily mean thatupwardly-mobile sectors are exiting in large numbers.50 Certainly, manyhouseholds that realize upward economic mobility leave inner-citycommunities. However, this movement does not negate the fact thatmany others decide to stay in these very same communities. Review ofactual neighborhood case studies, furthermore, shows that Black and



Latino communities can be impoverished and yet contain impressiveeconomic resources.

The neighborhood of Roxbury in Boston, for instance, shows a rela-tively stable community where large numbers of Black middle-classhouseholds have remained in the community. About 68% of the approx-imately forty-seven thousand residents in this area are African Americanand 23% are Latino. This neighborhood is among the poorest in the cityof Boston: in the 2000 federal census, 29% of all households withinRoxbury’s boundaries were reported as impoverished. In spite of itspoverty, the Black middle class is not fleeing this neighborhood.Households reporting incomes between $35,000 and $75,000 in 2000comprised 27% of all households in the census tracts contained withinthis neighborhood. Several hundred households (5%) reported incomesin excess of $100,000. As a matter of fact, the number of Black householdsreporting incomes greater than $50,000 in Boston’s Black neighborhoods,including Roxbury, has increased significantly as illustrated in Figure 1.


Figure 1 Growth of Black Households Earning More than $50,000 per Year,1990–2000

Neighborhoods like Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, where mostBlacks in the city of Boston live, did not experience decline in the pres-ence of middle-class households.

In “poor” Roxbury, residents own a wide range of financial assetsincluding certificates of deposits, stocks and bonds, mutual funds,retirement accounts, and life insurance policies with cash values. In


2001, residents held $65.7 million in certificates of deposit, $58.2 millionin bonds and savings bonds, $76.3 million in stocks, $126 million inmutual funds, and $430.8 million in retirement accounts. The value ofhome equity in this impoverished area of the city was $2.2 billion in2001. Impoverished neighborhoods that have significant economicresources and assets indirectly serve as a critique of social capital as thekey variable for increasing a community’s level of economic prosperityand social stability.

The case of Roxbury is not unique. In predominantly Latino neigh-borhoods of Lawrence, one of the poorest cities in Massachusetts, wefind a similar situation where the stock of social capital becomes irrele-vant in the face of enormous economic resources. The poorest censustract in Lawrence (Tract 2501) reports a poverty rate of 48.2% in 2000.(The U.S. Census Bureau considers this an area of “extreme poverty”since the rate is higher than 40%). Without considering other facts orknowing what is occurring on the ground level in terms of civic engage-ment on the part of residents, we can well imagine what images such anarea conjures in the minds of scholars, including for the social capitalproponents, a lack of trust, networks, and cooperation among the resi-dents. Yet, in this very same census tract one finds 974 households hold-ing some form of financial assets.

Approximately 14% of these households owned certificates of depositin 2001, 21% held savings bonds, 16% owned stocks, 30% owned lifeinsurance policies with cash values, and 12% owned mutual funds. Theaggregate values of these financial assets were relatively considerablegiven the overall poverty rate in the census tract. The aggregate value ofcertificates of deposit totaled $5.2 million, savings bonds totaled$735,000, stocks totaled $5.5 million, and mutual funds held by the resi-dents in the city’s poorest area were assessed at $8.9 million. The residentsheld $27.6 million in retirement accounts and the value of home equityreached $146 million in 2001. By the way, residents in this one censustract spent $28.3 million in 2002 on retail and non-retail expenditures.51

As is the case with Roxbury, where approximately 1,100 businessesare located, the Arlington neighborhood in Lawrence, one of the poor-est in this city and with a high population of Latinos, boasts many smalland local businesses as shown in Figure 2.

While poverty is a critical problem in this neighborhood, one alsofinds approximately six hundred microenterprises that employed about1,435 persons in 2003 and generated $162 million in sales.52 Based on asurvey of Latino entrepreneurs by Santiago and Jennings, what is mostimportant to the survival of many Latino businesses in this city is access



to capital and a friendlier local government that sees this sector as anasset for the city’s future. The well-being of these businesses seems lessdependent upon the notion of social capital, or level of trust or networksamong business owners, and more dependent on local government poli-cies and practices towards this sector.53

This information supports the findings of others who report a highlevel of social capital in places presumed to be low in social capital dueto the presence of urban and economic distress. Portney and Berryobserve, for example:

Poor black neighborhoods are often stereotyped as communities wheresocial and political institutions have badly deteriorated and where antiso-cial behavior is all too prevalent . . . In the cities we studied, poor blackneighborhoods and black neighborhoods at all economic levels demon-strate a relatively high degree of political participation in neighborhoodassociations. These neighborhood associations are effective in cultivatingamong African Americans attitudes that are supportive of the community.In neighborhoods with significant numbers of black residents, strongdemocratic structures work.54


Figure 2 Microenterprises in Lawrence’s Arlington Neighborhood


The many examples of inner-city neighborhoods that show an abundantlevel of social capital and civic energy, albeit in the midst of spatialinequality, motivate Fuchs, et al. ask: “Has social capital really declinedin poor and immigrant communities, or have researchers simply beenlooking for the wrong kind of activities?”55

Regardless of a vibrant middle-class sector, significant community-levelspending power, and enormous range of resources that have potentialeconomic value, living conditions in places like Roxbury and parts ofLawrence are not as good as those found in other neighborhoods. Thedirector of the Dominican Studies Institute in New York City, RamonaHernandez, notes that the Dominican community has been described asone rich in social capital. The evidence for this claim is the community’s“thriving entrepreneurial economy.” But this has been ineffective inresolving the “other face of the community” composed of significantpoverty, marginalization, and economic depression.56

The foregoing examples suggest that the key question facing theseneighborhoods is not how to create, attract, or sustain social capital, butrather how to leverage the neighborhood’s assets and resources onbehalf of residents and the neighborhood’s well-being. A focus on socialcapital does not answer this question. Again, as asserted by Portes andLandolt (1996):

[T]he call for higher social capital as a solution to the problems of the innercity misdiagnoses the problem and can lead to both a waste of resourcesand new frustrations. It is not the lack of social capital, but the lack ofobjective economic resources—beginning with decent jobs—that underliesthe plight of impoverished urban groups . . . Undoubtedly, individuals andcommunities can benefit greatly from social participation and mutual trust,but the outcomes will vary depending on what resources are obtained, whois excluded from them, and what is demanded in exchange.”57

This describes the idea of civic capacity as more important than social cap-ital in explaining local successes aimed at improving living conditions.58

Social Capital as Neighborhood Revitalization

Claiming that social capital is a key issue in the revitalization of innercities is not just a “misdiagnosis” of a problem. The call for social capitalis associated with urban redevelopment strategies that primarily benefitcorporate and wealthy interests. In other words, declaring that the lack ofsocial capital in certain places explains current living conditions carries



certain policy and political implications for these places. Exclaiming theneed to create social capital as a response to the effects of racial and spa-tial inequalities facilitates what Judd and Swanstrom describe as a pro-growth logic of economic development for the urban United States—aframework that seeks to transform inner cities and pursue neighbor-hood revitalization in ways that meet the needs of wealthy institutionsand corporate interests.59

Generally, the logic infused with the call for importing social capital,proceeds in the following order:

1. Poverty and crime are major problems in the inner cities.2. There is no middle class, or wealth, or assets—and, by implication—

no, or little, social capital in these places.3. Social capital is a key feature for addressing poverty, crime, and

joblessness.4. The suburban and corporate-based middle class have the skills,

civic capacity, and concern to improve their communities.5. The way to revitalize inner cities, therefore—logically—is to encour-

age the middle-class to settle in these places, or allow big businessand big institutions to utilize land to meet its own interest.

6. Before this can take place, however, it is necessary to de-concen-trate, or contain, or de-mobilize poor and working-class people.

This framework has political and policy faces in many places in urbansociety as suggested in the example discussed by Fraser, et al.:

Central to the efforts of Chattanooga leaders to reimagine the city as aspace of hope and prosperity has been their ability to shift the scale atwhich they operate by reclaiming devalorized areas, “reincorporating”them into the city, and building a landscape that is appealing to certainsensibilities. These sensibilities essentially are those associated with mid-dle- and upper-middle-class consumption and the related process of cap-ital investment (e.g., convention center facilities, shopping districts,university expansion) . . . spatial strategies to reclaim inner-city neighbor-hoods, arguably transforming these areas from predominantly spaces ofuse by inner-city residents into a site for capital accumulation.60

The claim that urban spaces dominated by low-income groups and peo-ple of color lack in social capital, opens the door to calls for restoring tra-dition, or order, in these urban spaces. Urban scholar Stephen NathanHaymes argues that even the selection of architecture is utilized as a toolfor such strategies. He claims that “neoclassical architecture is used as a



way to ‘restore tradition’ in the city. In this sense, architectural redevel-opment or gentrification is tied to a nostalgia for the past.” Haymesexplains that values associated with neoclassical architecture “such asorder, purity, beauty, and rationality” are seen as replacing lack of orderin inner cities.61 But what is also being replaced is the political potentialof residents in low-income neighborhoods to challenge urban regimesdominated by corporate interests.

Anthropologist Arlene Davila suggests that it is social order, ratherthan social capital, that is the aim of corporate interests in el Barrio, a pri-marily Puerto Rican and Latino historic neighborhood in New York City.The city utilized the neighborhood’s empowerment zone designation toattract White visitors and land investors. It initiated this possibility by com-missioning a “Tourism Market Study” that at first declared the neighbor-hood as unsafe and decaying.62 Yet, for long-time residents, theneighborhood is culturally vibrant and rich in social capital, and with along tradition of collective struggle to improve living conditions. But totransform this Latino neighborhood for the benefit of a predominantlyWhite and professional middle-class seeking lower housing costs and eas-ier access to downtown, the city first had to declare el Barrio to be a “slum,”devoid of worth, and certainly lacking in social capital among its residents.

Conclusion

Ultimately, corporate and wealthy interests are the beneficiaries of socialcapital as substitute for political and community-based responses toracial and spatial inequality. The proposal that social capital is a resourceto increase civic engagement and “turn neighborhoods around” opensthe political door for these same kinds of interests to acquire ownershipand management of land in inner cities. The discourse of social capital—including the suggestion that it is lacking in inner cities—becomes justi-fication for the continual de-funding of community-based organizationsand local nonprofits, sectors that play important roles in building polit-ical participation and civic engagement. As Jane Franklin states in areview of select literature on social capital: “The idea of social capitalaids the shift in responsibility for ‘social inclusion’ from economy tosociety, and from government to individual, informing policies thatfocus on social behavior, reducing the cost to government, since . . . itprovides non-economic solutions to social problems.”63 And thus shequips, “Putnam’s ideas appeal to policy makers.”64

Social capital as a proposal for improving living conditions in innercities is seductive and enjoys support because the status quo of wealth



and power, and lack of access to such, is not challenged. As the historyand development of neighborhood struggles aimed at reducing or elim-inating racial and spatial inequality continues to unfold, however, itbecomes clearer that the lack of social capital and civic engagement onthe part of residents is not the problem. For interests with power andwealth, and political agendas that benefit corporate elites, the real prob-lem is that these places, lacking in material goods and suffering theeffects of racial and spatial inequality, have to be controlled and renderedpolitically weak in the interests of corporate and global power.

Notes

1. This paper is based on a presentation to the 2004–2006 Science ResearchFund Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in Kobe, Japan (October 9,2004), and to the National Conference of Black Political Scientists on March22, 2005. I extend special thanks to my friend and colleague, Junichi Kawata,Professor of Law at Osaka University, for many discussions on this topic.Ericka Stallings (2005) and Jen Lawrence (2006), graduate students at TuftsUniversity, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning,assisted with many research tasks. My thanks to Assistant Professor LisaGarcía Bedolla at the University of California, Irvine and Assistant ProfessorMichael Leo Owens at Emory University for reviewing and commenting onan earlier version of this paper.

2. H. Coffee and B. Geys, “Institutional Performance and Social Capital: AnApplication to the Local Government Level,” Journal of Urban Affairs 27, no.5 (2005) 485–501.

3. D. L. Turcotte and Linda Silka, Reflections on the Concept of Social Capital:Complex Relationships in Refugee and Immigrant Communities (Lowell,Mass.: University of Lowell, 2003), 3.

4. R. D. Putnam, Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital inContemporary Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 415.

5. A. Vidal, “Building Social Capital to Promote Community Equity,” Journal ofthe American Planning Association, 70 (2) (2004), 165.

6. Ibid.7. I. Light, “Symposium: Using Social Capital to Help Integrate Planning

Theory, Research, and Practice,” Journal of the American PlanningAssociation, 70 (2) (Spring 2004), 4.

8. A. Portes and P. Landolt, “Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II; TheDownside of Social Capital,” The American Prospect (online) 7 (26)(May/June 1996), para. 1.

9. M. Woolcock and D. Narayan, “SocialCapital: Implications for DevelopmentTheory, Research, & Policy,” The World Bank Research Observer 15 (2)(2000), 225–49.



10. R. Putnam and K. Goss. Introduction in R. Putnam, Democracies in Flux:The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2002).

11. C. Sirianni and L. Friedland, (n.d) “Social Capital,” Civic Dictionary CivicPractices Network, http://www.cpn.org/tools/dictionary/capital.html (RetrievedAugust 16, 2004), para. 3.

12. L. Larsen, et al., “Bonding and Bridging: Understanding the RelationshipBetween Social Capital and Civic Action,” Journal of Planning Education andResearch 24 (1) (Fall 2004), 64–77.

13. Ibid.14. I. Light, “Symposium: Using Social Capital to Help Integrate Planning

Theory, Research, and Practice,” Journal of the American PlanningAssociation 70 (2) (Spring 2003), 147.

15. Ibid., 149.16. M. Chupp, Investing in People through Place: The Role of Social Capital in

Transforming Neighborhoods; A Literature Review of Social Capital andNeighborhood Transformation (Cleveland: Cleveland State University,Levine College of Urban Affairs, 1999), 2.

17. Ibid.18. Y. M. Alex-Assensoh, Neighborhood, Family, and Political Behavior in Urban

America (Garland Press: New York, 1998); S. Baron, J. Field, and T. Schuller,Social Capital: Critical Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

19. James DeFilippis, “The Myth of Social Capital in Community Development”Housing Policy Debate, Volume 12, Issue 4 (2001), p 781

20. R. M. Silverman, “CDCS and Charitable Organizations in the Urban South:Mobilizing Social Capital Based on Race and Religion for NeighborhoodRevitalization,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30 (2) (April 2001), 241.

21. A. Greely, “Coleman Revisited: Religious Structures as a Source of SocialCapital,” in Foley, et al. (2003), 235.

22. S. N. Durlauf and M. Fafchamps, “Social Capital,” JEL Classification:E26,010,040,L14,Z13 (July 13, 2004), 2.

23. R. M. Silverman, “CDCS and Charitable Organizations in the Urban South:Mobilizing Social Capital Based on Race and Religion for NeighborhoodRevitalization,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30 (2) (April 2001), 263.

24. “Inner-city Ills,” Civic Dictionary, (2004), 125. Omar Roberts (2003)26. Rodney Hero (2003: 113)27. Ibid., p 116.28. García Bedolla & Scola, 6.29. H. Cruse, Plural but Equal: A Critical Study of Blacks and Minorities and the

America’s Plural Society (New York: William Morrow, 1987).30. I. Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the

United States, 1900–30 and Britain, 1948–68 (London: Oxford University,1973); G. Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto; Negro New York,



1890–1930 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); K. L. Kusmer, A Ghetto TakesShape: Black Cleveland, 1870–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1976)

31. M. Chavez and L. R. Fraga, “Social Trust, Civic Engagement, and SocialMobility,” paper presented at the Western Political Science AssociationMeeting (Denver, Colorado, 2003).

32. R. A. Couto and C. S. Guthrie, Making Democracy Work Better: MediatingStructures, Social Capital, and the Democratic Prospect (North Carolina: TheNorth Carolina Press, 1999).

33. K. E. Portney and J. M. Berry, “Mobilizing Minority Communities: SocialCapital and Participation in Urban Neighborhoods,” in Beyond Tocqueville:Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, B.Edwards, M. W. Foley, and M. Diani (eds.) (Hanover, NH: University Pressof New England, 2001), 71.

34. E. R. Fuchs, R. Y. Shapiro, and L. C. Minnite, “Social Capital, PoliticalParticipation, and the Urban Community,” in Social Capital and PoorCommunities, Saegert, et al. (eds.) (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,2001), 292.

35. Ibid., 294.36. D. J. Monti, Jr., “Old Whines in New Bottles: Robert Putnam, Richard

Florida, and the ‘Community’ Problem in Contemporary America,” paperbased on presentation to the American Sociological Association, SanFrancisco (2004).

37. P. A. Hall, “Great Britain: The Role of Government and the Distribution ofSocial Capital,” in Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital inContemporary Society, R. D. Putnam (ed.), (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2002), 21–57.

38. M. Foley, B. Edwards, and M. Diani, “Social Capital Reconsidered,” inBeyond Tocqueville, Bob Edwards, Michael W. Foley, and Mario Diani.,(eds.) (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2001), 271.

39. R. Williams, The Politics of Public Housing, (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2004), 14.

40. R. D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class(New York: Free Press, 1994).

41. There is literature that looks at a similar dynamic in the internationalarena. Impoverished groups are approached as having agency in civic life,though not as part of mainstream structures or processes. See, for exam-ple, Ananya Roy’s discussion about “urban informality” and the need forplanners to understand this development in “Urban Informality: Toward anEpistemology of Planning,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 71(2) (Spring 2005) 147–58.

42. Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996, Pub. L. No.104–193, § 1, 110 Stat. 2105.

43. J. Jennings, Welfare Reform and the Revitalization of Inner-City Neighborhoods(East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 2003).



44. J. Santiago and J. Jennings, ‘Welfare Reform and ‘Welfare to Work’ as Non-Sequitur:Case Study of Experiences of Latina Women in Massachusetts’,Journal of Poverty, 81 (1) (2004) 25.

45. E. G. Goetz, Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America(Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 2003).

46. Ibid., 148.47. S. A. Venkatesh, American Project: the Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto

(Cambridge: Harvard University, 2000).48. L. Bennett and A. Reed Jr., “The New face of Urban Renewal: The Near

North Redevelopment Initiative and the Cabrini-Green neighborhood,” inWithout Justice for All, A. Reed, Jr. (ed.) (Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado,1999), 182.

49. Ibid., 181.50. See references for Gregory (1992), Moore (2005), and Owens (1997) in the

Bibliography.51. The census figures reported are based on the 2000 Census, SF3 (Standard);

information and data about financial assets and consumer expenditures arebased on geo-coded data provided by Applied Geographic Solutions,Household Finances (2001) and Consumer Expenditures (2002).

52. A microenterprise is defined here as a business employing five or feweremployees. The data are based on information provided by Claritas Business-Facts® (2003) and then spatially plotted by using the addresses of these busi-nesses in a street map of the city of Lawrence in Massachusetts.

53. J. Santiago and J. Jennings, La Comunidad de Negocios Latinos de Lawrence,Massachusetts: Un Perfil y Analisis (2000 y 2003), paper prepared for theCommunity Economic and Enterprise Center, Northern Essex CommunityCollege, 2004.

54. K. E. Portney and J. M. Berry, “Mobilizing Minority Communities: SocialCapital and Participation in Urban Neighborhoods,” in Beyond Tocqueville:Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, B.Edwards, M. W. Foley, and M. Diani (eds.) (Hanover, NH: University Pressof New England, 2001), 82.

55. E. R. Fuchs, R. Y. Shapiro, and L. C. Minnite, “Social Capital, PoliticalParticipation, and the Urban Community,” in Social Capital and PoorCommunities, Saegert, et al. (eds.) (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,2001), 292.

56. R. Hernandez, The Mobility of Workers Under Advanced Capitalism:Dominican Migration to the United States (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 2002).

57. A. Portes and P. Landolt, “Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II; TheDownside of Social Capital,” The American Prospect (online) 7 (26)(May/June 1996), para. 22.

58. M. Orr, Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore,1986–1998 (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2000).



59. D. R. Judd and T. Swanstrom, City Politics: Private Power and Public Policy(New York: HarperCollins, 1994).

60. J. C. Fraser, E. L. Kick, and J. P. Williams, “The Construction of the Localand the Limits of Contemporary Community Building in the United States,”Urban Affairs Review 38 (3) (January 2003), 428.

61. S. Haymes, Race, Culture, and the City (Albany, New York: State Universityof New York Press, 1995), 117.

62. A. Davila, “Empowered Culture? New York City’s Empowerment Zone andthe Selling of el Barrio,” The Annals 594 (July 2004), 54.

63. J. Franklin, “Social Capital: Policy and Politics,” Social Policy and Society 2(4) (2003), 349.

64. Ibid., 350.



Chapter 6

Social Capital in Refugee andImmigrant Communities

David Turcotte and Linda Silka

Aparadox pervades discussions about the impact of immigrants andrefugees on communities. The paradox is this: on the one hand,

commentators who report on struggling communities highlight thedaunting obstacles faced by these cities because of an influx of immi-grants and refugees who bring with them a host of needs. On the otherhand, commentators point to the importance that immigrants andrefugees play in bringing vibrancy to otherwise stagnant economies.

These are not idle differences. They reflect whether community res-idents see immigrants and refugees as urgently in need of a social serv-ice approach or, instead, as bringing resources likely to improve a city’sprospects. These differences in perspective also tap into many currentdebates, such as those about what constitutes social capital and how asa society we can best build and maintain the civil structures that createsocial capital. At their least refined, these debates reflect differences inwhether refugees and immigrants are seen as a problem or a promise.In addition, yet another paradox is emerging in discussions aboutimmigrant and refugee communities within the United States.Traditional analysis of immigrants emphasized questions about whymigrants leave their native countries and how they integrate into theirnew host country. However, more recent research is now analyzing a


new phenomenon of the ongoing transnational relationships betweenimmigrant/refugee communities and their country of origin. The exis-tence of this new phenomenon has generated debate and controversywithin the study of immigration.

Too often the above positions have been argued in the abstract.Our experiences at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center forFamily, Work, and Community (CFWC) show the need to becomeimmersed in actual activities aimed at community building and eco-nomic development if one is going to address these issues in a nuancedway. Over the last few years at CFWC we have engaged in many commu-nity development and social capital ventures with newcomers to easternMassachusetts from Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. Theseinitiatives include leadership training, development of new businessopportunities linked to environmental activities, development of com-munication tools, and support for the development of business networksand mutual assistance associations. All of these initiatives reflect indepth partnerships with refugee and immigrant leaders. These initiativeshave helped us explore three questions: (1) What innovative infrastruc-ture developments in the newcomer community have taken place in theMassachusetts Merrimack Valley? (2) What strengths of newcomer com-munities typically go unrecognized by traditional approaches to com-munity economic development? (3) What clashes in models ofcommunity economic development emerge between immigrants andplanners engaging in traditional practices?

In this chapter we point to the need to focus on the actual practicesof community economic development and social capital developmentthat immigrant and refugee groups regularly use in building a presencein the region. Without a full understanding of these practices, efforts byuniversity partners and others are likely to be unsuccessful because theywill not be attuned to the complex perspectives on community develop-ment that drive efforts in newcomer groups to enhance the community.

To set the stage for our discussions of the local scene, in the next sec-tion we consider social capital analyses that are increasingly beingadopted by analysts as the lens through which to see what is “missing”in poor communities and to explain how communities might use socialcapital to strengthen their economic base. This body of work provides animportant framework from which to think about the communities thatare home to growing numbers of immigrants, in part because suchanalyses not only bring to the forefront questions about the approachesthat immigrants bring to their communities but also because this analy-sis for understanding newcomers remains contested.



Social Capital and Community Economic Development

Increasingly, the notion of strengthening a community’s economic baseis being framed in terms of the language of social capital. Communitydevelopment efforts are adopting the framework of social capital as away to understand what communities must do if they are to prosper.1

Although disagreements remain about how best to define social capital,it is generally described as civic engagement and as formal and informalcivic structures such as schools, neighborhood associations, andchurches. The availability of these structures is seen as enhancing acommunity’s ability to compete for jobs and residents.2 The links tobusiness and economic development are seen as straightforward. Asone writer notes:

Small, locally owned establishments reinforce civic engagement becausethe owners are heavily invested in the community. Owners and managersof small production firms participate in local community institutions inorder to maintain networks of local business contacts and supporters.Community involvement means that these small businesses may be lesslikely to pull out of the community in an economic downturn, and morelikely to support and lead local nonprofit institutions.3

The construct of social capital is rapidly becoming a core theme withincommunity development discussions. Okagaki focuses on communitydevelopment as an anti-poverty strategy that in turn is seen as compre-hensive opportunity-oriented approach that includes economic develop-ment, labor force development, and social capital [italics added].Okagaki argues that “true economic opportunity depends on both aninternal process of individual development and the external supportprovided by social capital [italics added].4 Flora and Flora emphasizeopenness, ease of entry, optimal utilization of available resources, andstrong networking as key to community development. Strong network-ing is often touted as an important component of social capital.5

In bringing social capital into discussions, some development spe-cialists focus on whether a particular community can be said to have agreat deal of social capital, whereas other analysts concern themselveswith the question of whether social capital can be increased throughappropriate interventions. Gardner, for example, charted the progressof a region that attempted to revitalize itself by investing in social capi-tal and “taking active steps to reestablish a healthy and growing civicsociety.” At the start of the community-driven intervention, the areasuffered from high social instability and low job creation. Rather than

SOCIAL CAPITAL IN REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES 111


tackling these problems directly, the community chose to emphasizestrategies aimed at increasing social capital. Community leaders noted:“We needed to develop social capital, putting a new emphasis on the ‘we’relative to the spirit of community. If we were to be competitive, weneeded to concern and involve as many citizens as possible in the solu-tion of common problems.”6

With regard to the creation of social capital, Kingley, McNeely, andGibson contrast community building that is focused on social capital for-mation with the old-style neighborhood-based poverty alleviation pro-grams that over the past half-century have dominated communities. Theprimary aim of building social capital is not to simply give “more money,services, or other material benefits to the poor.” Rather, “the centraltheme is to obliterate feelings of dependency and to replace them withattitudes of self-reliance, self-confidence, and responsibility . . . [T]heseare not ideas being imposed from the outside—they are what the leadersof distressed neighborhoods across the nation themselves are saying thatthey want to see accomplished.”7

Despite the increasingly widespread use of concepts of social capi-tal, these remain contested constructs. In his chapter of this book,Jennings notes that the assumption that social capital is what is miss-ing in poor neighborhoods is problematic because it ignores structuralinequality in these communities. This perspective, Jennings contends,“dismisses institutional and policy causes of structural inequity.”8 Hepoints to Silverman’s argument that an emphasis on social capital as away to alleviate structural inequity is also problematic because socialcapital remains difficult to measure, with varying definitions of socialcapital used by researchers, and because social capital is a valuedefined by local context and thus cannot be generically moved fromone place to the next.9

Jennings points to other problems with the concept of social capital.He cites work that illustrates what he refers to as “de-racialization ofsocial capital” when researchers overlook racial and ethnic differenceswhen viewing social capital. Finally, Jennings notes how the language ofsocial capital has been adopted by privileged groups as a way to preservetheir position and that these groups have often resisted self-help initia-tives in Black communities. He also notes this perspective is problematicas it simply assumes inner-city low-income and minority communitieshave higher levels of apathy and less civic engagement.

Other forms of civic participation in these communities are over-looked. In the Monti chapter, the author points to the deep inconsisten-cies in the social capital analyses by Putnam10 and Florida,11 the two



most commonly cited advocates for social capital analyses.12 Montiargues that Florida and Putnam offer evidence that contradict eachother. On one hand, Putnam laments that cities have less social capitalthan smaller towns, as they are too big and diverse, yet Florida claimsthat cities with more diversity and creativity are preferable to smallermonolithic communities. Consequently, Florida sees cities are superiorwhile Putnam believes small towns are preferable. “Putnam’s story isactually the flip side of Florida’s. It’s all about decay and loss and therejection of time-honored customs, codes, and beliefs.”13

The extent to which a social capital analysis has value in explainingcommunity economic development in immigrant and refugee communi-ties remains a point of contention. Many see problems in applying theseconcepts to diverse immigrant neighborhoods. For example, Changpoints to the ways in which a focus on dominant Anglo-European normscan “smother the norms and practices of minority groups and with themthe development of social capital within that group.” The concepts ofsocial capital also fail to capture the nature of the struggles in these com-munities. For example, the difficulties of language loss has been pointedto by Chang, wherein elders have difficulty offering support and normdevelopment if they speak a language that children in the family do notspeak and are not learning.14 Social capital analyses does little to assist inunderstanding how these challenges are overcome within the many suc-cessful immigrant communities.

Laws focuses on immigrants who have relocated as a result of changesassociated with globalization. “At the heart of this linkage is an economicrestructuring across societies and in the U.S. that has potent social con-sequences for immigrant populations. Such people, induced to migrateby changing economic circumstances, find growing ghettoization, isola-tion, and cultural antipathies in their new settings. In this new globality,immigrant populations are commonly fingered as the other, the invad-ing and ominous people threatening time-tested social norms and eco-nomic principles.”15

Yet the strengths of newcomer communities—strengths that bearresemblance to operational definitions of social capital—often go unrec-ognized by local business and economic development professionals. Thestrong family and social bonds that make possible the generation offinancial capital within ethnic communities are often unacknowledged.For example, as Portes and Zhou have noted, immigrants often pooltheir savings into an informal “rotating credit association” that is used tofinance entrepreneurial members of newcomer communities.16 In astudy of 149 Latino businesses in Lawrence Massachusetts, Santiago and



Jennings found high rates of startup funding from family or closefriends.17 According to Portes and Zhou, immigrants report feeling morecomfortable with informal verbal agreements than with the labor inten-sive process often required to obtain a bank loan. The authors contendthat the former informal approach functions well, even in the absence ofa legally enforceable agreement, because members of these newcomercommunities risk ostracism if they fail to follow through on their verbalcommitments. In addition to the fear of expulsion from one’s community,immigrants place a high value in honoring commitments to their closefamily and social networks.18 The strength that this “social compact”brings to a local economy has often gone unnoticed by the larger society.

These brief examples point to the need for more to be known aboutinfrastructure development in immigrant communities—often highlyimpoverished communities—and the ways in which these developmentsemerge. Although these developments would seem to fit the definitionof social capital, they also appear to involve something “more,” some-thing not fully captured by standard social capital analyses. In the nextsection we describe some of the infrastructure developments that haveemerged in the Merrimack Valley’s large Asian community that raiseintriguing questions about how local communities build a viable eco-nomic base by creating deep social networks and community links.

Innovative Infrastructure Developments in Merrimack Valley’s Newcomer Community

A number of infrastructure developments have emerged within theimmigrant community in Lowell and the Merrimack Valley over the lastdecade. Organizations and associations have proliferated, including theAsian American Business Association, the Cambodian MutualAssistance Association (CMAA), the Cambodian American League ofLowell, the Cambodian Women’s Organization, and the Lao FamilyMutual Association. Programs such as UML’s CIRCLE (Center forImmigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment)Program have also emerged.

These organizations, associations, and projects provide some socialservices but primarily their aim is to serve as engines of economicgrowth within immigrant communities. CMAA, for example, hasworked to become a microincubator for startup immigrant businesses,and, through its acquisition of a former mill, has attempted to become asite for growth and revitalization in a depressed neighborhood of Lowellthat is home to a large number of Cambodian families.



Other “engines” of immigrant economic development have alsoemerged and the diversity of these efforts speaks to the diverse skills andresources immigrants bring to the region. The Acre Family Daycare hasdeveloped programs for training immigrant women to start their ownfamily day care centers. The New Farmers, New Beginnings program,funded by the Farm Services Administration and jointly sponsored byCommunity Teamwork, Inc. and Tufts University, assists Americanfarmers in leasing land to and mentoring Cambodians who previouslywere farmers in their home country, thus enabling them to employ theirtraditional farming skills in America. A goal of this initiative is todevelop viable businesses where Asian crops can be raised for immigrantfamilies who are unable to purchase their preferred foods in the UnitedStates or can do so only at great expense associated with imported foods.Linked with this work are attempts to start an Asian Farmers’ Market inLowell designed to draw in Cambodian and other Southeast Asian fami-lies as consumers. Others have focused on urban aquaculture and thepossibilities of developing a viable industry that would integrate the tra-ditional skills people bring from Cambodia with new environmentaltechnologies. To explore this possibility, the CMAA and UML receivedfunding from the Department of Food and Agriculture to develop a busi-ness plan and demonstration program. As yet another example of bring-ing together recent environmental innovations with traditional practices,UML’s CFWC and the Center for Sustainable Production worked withlocal immigrant restaurants to investigate nutrient cycling and the possi-bility of linking local businesses to the farmers through composting.

Another innovative way that immigrant communities have promotedeconomic development is through cultural celebrations. In the case ofeach festival, the underlying themes of small business and economicdevelopment animate these events. The annual Southeast Asian WaterFestival (now in its tenth year) draws thousands to Lowell, and directlyand indirectly promotes economic development in the immigrant com-munity. The festival, Celebrating Diverse Traditions, further exemplifiesthis approach, bringing together immigrant leaders with officials fromthe Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs to address,in part, issues of economic development. The focus of CelebratingDiverse Traditions was placed on identifying best economic developmentpractices from the home countries of Lowell’s newcomers, with the goalthat these could then be used to transform Lowell into an economicallyvibrant but environmentally safe city. Many ideas emerged in the focusgroups leading up to the festival, including one by a Cambodian com-munity leader, Sophyroth Sun, in which he presented a plan for an Asian



cultural center that would be housed in a building designed to integrateEast and West and that would draw together professional businesses,start up business, and cultural and museum space to capture the integra-tion of Cambodian and American approaches to transforming Lowell.

By no means has the creation of traditional businesses been neglectedin these efforts. A university-funded study of minority businesses inLowell documented the emergence of many new immigrant businesses.The impact of this development on small immigrant businesses is appar-ent throughout the Merrimack Valley. If one looks at the downtown andneighborhoods of Lowell, one can see the numbers of newcomer busi-nesses now in operation. In many respects, Lowell’s storefronts would beghost towns were it not for immigrant entrepreneurs.

Other examples of economic development in immigrant and refugeescommunities emphasize alternative ways that area immigrants access cap-ital. Money sharing and the development of informal loan funds, partic-ularly within the Southeast Asian community in Lowell, have propelledsmall business development. In addition, this small business developmentwithin the Merrimack Valley has forged strong commercial links withsuppliers from native countries. As a result, potential export links withnative countries provide additional economic development opportunities.

These businesses benefit from the many social links that existthroughout the newcomer community. One of the reflections of thesesocial links is the high multiplier effect in immigrant communities suchas Lowell.19 Studies indicate that within newcomer communities, themultiplier impact is typically greater—and sometimes much greater—than in the nonimmigrant community. In a study in Miami, for example,it was estimated that in the Cuban refugee community the income gen-erated by the multiplier effect was 4.5 times higher than in the nonim-migrant community.20 Why might this be the case? Immigrantcommunities tend to buy products and services within their social net-works in part as a result of language and cultural familiarity. There isalso recognition within the community of the importance of supportingnewcomer businesses. This “bounded solidarity,” as it has been termed,increases the opportunities for success of these ethnic enterprises as aresult of newcomers experiencing heightened cultural identity and pre-ferring services and products associated with their native country.21 Inaddition, these newcomer businesses often emphasize “high value addedretailing” through offering such benefits as convenient hours, informalcredit, fluency in native languages, and check-cashing services.22

Factors that increase the multiplier effect take on particular impor-tance in the Merrimack Valley because so many regional forces work



against the recirculation of resources. Lowell is located close to the NewHampshire border with its many commercial malls; thus, Lowell’s down-town has had to struggle to avoid the dismal fate of most downtowncommercial districts that continue to be decimated by competition fromlarge commercial malls. For downtown districts in Massachusetts bordercommunities, the impact has been particularly devastating as consumershave a larger incentive to shop in New Hampshire in order to avoid salestax. The importance of newcomers’ propensity to purchase services andproducts from local immigrant businesses in all likelihood has enhancedthis multiplier effect within the urban Merrimack Valley communities.

The existence of a newcomer population also creates opportunitiesfor what has been called import substitution. According to theories ofimport substitution, as an immigrant community grows, more nativeproducts will be imported in order to meet the growing demand forfamiliar items.23 The larger the volume of imports, the more opportuni-ties there will be to start new enterprises aimed at producing these prod-ucts locally. Import substitution strategies are starting to emerge inLowell. The Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association (CMAA) andUMass Lowell have worked together, for example, to develop an importsubstitution strategy by which tilapia fish would be raised locally intanks to meet a local market demand, thereby substituting for importedtilapia now sold in every Asian market in Lowell. In addition, the Centerfor Family, Work, and Community has begun to build formal links withlocal farmers and Southeast Asian restaurants with the goal of creating amechanism by which local farmers could supply produce to Asianrestaurants that currently use fish imported from Asia.

Any analysis of how local immigrants and refugees impact their hostcommunities must also consider the unique relationships betweenmigrants in their communities in the United States and their country oforigin. This phenomenon, called “transnationalism,” is increasingly thefocus of attention by those attempting to understand the dynamicsbetween migrants and their home country. The concept of transnation-alism is used to describe the process by which immigrants forge and sus-tain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies oforigin and settlement.24 In transnationalism, “transmigrants, throughtheir daily activities, forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic,and political relationships that link together their societies of origin andsettlement, and through which they create transnational social fields thatcross national borders.”25 Prior to the study of transnationalism,researchers typically oriented their attention to questions of how andwhy immigrants leave their country of origin and adapt to their new host



country.26 Emphasis is now being placed on understanding the nature ofthe continuing relationship between migrants and their country of birth-place and how this changing interplay evolves into complex political,economic, and social interactions.

From the economic perspective, researchers have suggested that thesuccess of transnational immigrant entrepreneurs may depend on theircapacity to forge social networks between the country from which theycame and the country in which they settled.27 However, it remains to beseen whether transnationalism is commonplace or whether transnationalentrepreneurs are limited to certain groups or types of individuals. It ispossible that transnational entrepreneurs are “a distinct class of immi-grants who engage in these activities on a regular basis and who rely onthem as their primary livelihood.’28 Some have argued that transnationalentrepreneurs represent only a small portion of immigrant communi-ties.29 Even if their numbers are small, these transnational business own-ers may represent a significant portion of all immigrant entrepreneurs.Furthermore, recent research indicates that these transnational entrepre-neurs are often part of the “upper class” of their communities both interms of educational and income levels, are more likely to be U.S. citi-zens, and have typically resided in the United States longer than otherimmigrants. At the same time, these transnational entrepreneurs aregenerally drawn from first generation immigrants.30 Within theCambodian community, it appears that the level of transnational busi-ness activity and the demographics of those business owners who engagein transnational practices are consistent with what has been found instudies of other immigrant groups. The numbers of Cambodian entre-preneurs involved in transnational business activities in Lowell representapproximately 20–30% of the business community and tend to be con-centrated in clothing, entertainment (CDs, videos, and DVDs), andtravel. On average, these business owners have resided in the UnitedStates for many years, are U.S. citizens, and have higher income and edu-cational levels than is typical within the Cambodian community.

The forms taken by transnationalism appear to vary by the back-grounds of immigrants as well as by the circumstance that led to theirleaving their home country.31 For example, a study of Columbian immi-grants from urban areas concluded that they assimilated into the UnitedStates at an accelerated pace and minimized contacts with the sendingcountry due to the considerable violence they left behind. In contrast,other studies found that immigrants from rural areas and small townsfrom peaceful sending countries were significantly more inclined toengage in transnational activities with their country of origin. In addition,



evidence indicates that migrants who assimilate into the host country areless likely to be involved in transnational actions. On the other hand,immigrants who live in large, concentrated communities of fellownatives and particularly those who experience hostile receptions fromthe host residents are more likely to engage in transnational activities.Another interesting finding it that some immigrants are actively engagedin transnational activities while assimilating in the host country andachieve upward mobility in both settings.32 While it is clear that transna-tional economic activities usually provide important financial support tothe sending country, these same immigrants also share their economicresources, time, and loyalty with their host country.33

Transnational Political Activity and Its Impact on Community Development

Above we focused on economic transnationalism; the impacts of politicaltransnationalism must also be considered. Political transnationalism dif-fers from economic transnationalism in focus but likely has an importantimpact on community development and social capital formation.Existing literature indicates that only a minority of immigrants (perhapsone in five) regularly involve themselves in political transnationalaction.34 Despite their small numbers, these individuals often play impor-tant leadership roles in immigrant communities. The types of transna-tional political activities vary. One framework for understandingtransnational political action, for example, divides political practice intotwo levels, “narrow” activities, such as membership in a political party orcivic association in the homeland, and “ broad” activites, such as involve-ment in meetings and events related homeland politics.35 Immigrants canbecome engaged in transnational politics in a variety of ways but in thelocal Southeast Asian community transnational activities generallyinvolve either supporting or opposing homeland political parties and orgovernments. In Lowell, it appears that the number of Southeast Asiansinvolved in “narrow” activities are low, probably less than 10%.

The type and level of transnational political activities can affect localimmigrant communities. For example, Lowell is home to the secondlargest Cambodian population in the United States and, as a result, allthree major political parties from Cambodia have active party appara-tuses within the Lowell community. The party in power, the CambodianPeople’s Party (CPP) is headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen. The secondlargest political group—the Royal Party—is now aligned with the CPPand has been an on-and-off coalition partner with the CPP. The Sam



Raimsy Party is currently the opposition party. Although only a minor-ity of Cambodian immigrants in Lowell is active in any of the three par-ties, these party loyalties continue to loom large and, not infrequently,have led to conflict in Lowell that has negatively impacted local commu-nity development. These party activists often hold considerable influ-ence within the community; thus, their distrust of each other oftenprevents community-wide collaboration on important initiatives.

As this example illustrates, political conflict from the homeland cannegatively impact community development efforts among immigrantcommunities within host cities. The ability of Lowell’s CambodianMutual Assistance Association (CMAA) to work in the community wascompromised by CMAA’s collaboration with the Cambodian govern-ment on some high profile community events: ultimately, perceivedtransnationlism may have been a contributing factor in the ouster of theCMAA executive director. In 2001, the CMAA hosted a reception withinthe Cambodian community with the ambassador to the United Statesfrom the government of Hun Sen as the featured guest. In addition, theCMAA accepted two traditional racing boats from the Cambodian gov-ernment for the Southeast Asian Water Festival and publicly praisedHun Sen for these gifts. At the time, both the board President andExecutive Director were perceived by some members in the communityas controlled by the Cambodian People’s Party and the country’s PrimeMinister. Consequently, members of the community refused to supportefforts and programs of the CMAA. Increasingly, leaders in the variousparties in Lowell have begun to recognize the extent to which past con-flicts have created negative consequences for the local Cambodian com-munity. Consequently, these leaders have decided to not allow politicaldisagreements in the homeland to create divisions that are detrimentalto the local Cambodian community.

Issues of transnationalism have also made themselves felt withinLowell’s Laotian community. Here the divisive issue concerned which oftwo Laotian flags would be seen as legitimate and therefore should besupported and honored by the Lowell community. Some members ofLowell’s Laotian community support the recognition of the current Laosflag, the same flag that has received official recognition from the UnitedStates and the United Nations. A minority of the community supportsthe flag of the Royal Government that was supported by the UnitedStates during the 1970s prior to the Pathet Lao communist governmentcoming to power. Obviously, intertwined with this issue is the support ofor opposition to the existing Lao government. As in most SEA commu-nities, Laotians arrived in the United States in the late 1970s and early



1980s as political refugees of and opponents to the Pathet Lao commu-nist government. Because at the time all Lao refugees arrived in opposi-tion to this communist government, there was political unity within thecommunity and this unity was conducive to building cohesiveness andcommunity development. Within the last decade, things have changed.The current Laotian government, although still maintaining a one-partystate, has begun to open the economy and has allowed political refugeeswho fled the communist takeover to return home and visit families.These changing circumstances are now creating a rift within Lowell’sLao community, as the majority accepted this development as a positivechange and they have begun to visit family and friends as well as acceptthe current government. A vocal minority, on the other hand, continuesto hold the view that the flag of the former Royal government remainsthe only authentic flag and they continue to oppose the existing regime.As a result, divisions have emerged within the Lao refugee communitythat are now preventing people from collaborating to address local needsand issues within Lowell.

Clashes in Models of Community Economic Development Emerge Between Immigrants and Nonimmigrants

What is intriguing in the infrastructure developments just described ishow embedded these activities appear to be. To some degree this shouldcome as no surprise because such embeddedness is consistent withsocial capital ideas and the practices they seemingly promote. But whatis also intriguing is that these practices are, on the one hand, at odds withsome of the ongoing practices in the “mainstream” economic develop-ment infrastructure in the Merrimack Valley and, on the other hand,also encountering unexpected contradictions when the assumption ismade that introducing a communal, social capital approach will bestraightforward. This section will illustrate in some detail the contradic-tions and complications as seen through the lens of the development ofthe Asian American Business Association (AABA) and other infrastruc-tures intended as alternatives to a Chamber of Commerce model andother mainstream models.

Consider the traditional chamber model. Within such a model, adiversified group of businesses and corporations join a local chamberand pursue common interests. Because of the long history and accept-ance of the concept of chambers of commerce in the United States, non-immigrant individuals who choose to join generally understand why it isin their interest to join and what their involvement is likely to achieve.



For example, in Lowell the chamber focuses on professional develop-ment, networking, information exchanging and advocacy on large issues(e.g., in the Merrimack Valley the expansion of a major highway, creat-ing a more favorable business climate, and support for large economicdevelop projects).

The AABA was organized originally because at the time the local“mainstream” chamber had demonstrated little interest in reaching outto Asian businesses and addressing their particular needs. As a result,immigrant business owners had not joined the chamber. The need for anassociation of Asian business owners was clear as most Asian businesseswere struggling to succeed and grow. Many newcomer business ownersbrought experience in business from their native country but they wereunfamiliar with the steps needed to succeed in business here. For exam-ple, a few entrepreneurs purchased buildings in Lowell with the intent ofrelocating and expanding their businesses. However, those decisionswere made without familiarity with local building codes and zoningrequirements. These business owners unknowingly made decisions thatcreated major problems for the creation and expansion of their busi-nesses. In addition, many business owners were not yet familiar with theneed for record keeping and tax filing on the U.S. laws.

Those outside the Cambodian business community often regard theCambodian business community as highly communal. Thus peopleoften assume that the process of organizing an Asian business associa-tion along communal lines could be done with ease. In reality, the chal-lenges are significant. As the AABA was being formed, many businessowners resisted efforts to join together. A number of reasons for thisresistance among business owners became apparent over time, includinga lack of an understanding of and experience with a business association,a lack of a vision of how joining and participating in an associationmight be in their interests, suspicions and fears of exchanging informa-tion with competitors, and experience of Khmer Rouge collectivism andits impact on their willingness to participate in any sort of collectiveactivity in the United States.

The founders of the AABA wanted to focus on educating and advo-cating for the Asian businesses. This approach was consistent with theconcept that economic opportunity develops through a process of learn-ing, empowerment, and organizational building (such as the creation ofnetworks and informal relationships).36 Accordingly, the first public ses-sion organized by the AABA included a CPA and the BuildingCommissioner of Lowell to help educate business owners to record keep-ing and tax filing issues, local building code and zoning requirements.



The AABA also saw as one of their goals assisting Asian businesses inexpanding their customer base beyond the Southeast Asian community.An example of this happened when the AABA President invited theexecutive from a local hospital to a network session. At this AABA event,a board member who owns a wholesale business that supplies importproducts to Asian markets provided complimentary fruit drinks. Duringa conversation between this wholesaler and the hospital executives, itwas suggested that the hospital consider selling these drinks in theircafeteria because of the large Cambodian community that uses the hos-pital. As a result, the Asian wholesaler is now a supplier to the hospitalcafeteria. The intention of the AABA was to assist more Asian businessowners to secure contracts to provide services and products to both largeprivate and public sectors institutions. In this role, the AABA planned tobe an advocate for Asian businesses to create opportunity for their inclu-sion as vendors to major businesses and governmental entities.

Despite these laudable goals of the AABA, the development of theAABA struggled. One important barrier was the lack of startup capitalfor the organization. A second barrier was the surprisingly strong resist-ance among Asian business owners to joining a communal organization.In addition, perceptions that the first executive director was inexperi-enced also became a barrier. The first Executive Director and Presidentwere both under thirty years of age and were successful at developingrelationships with local government and non-minority business leadersbut failed to satisfy many board members and Asian business owners.The President and Executive Director believed that developing relation-ships outside the community was of primary importance, whereas otherson the board and within the Asian community saw the development ofrelationships within the community as key. Other leaders in the AABAbecame disillusioned by a lack of organizing and organizational develop-ment within the Asian business community.

After the attempt to organize the AABA, the leadership at the localchamber of commerce changed. Under the new leadership, the localchamber made a concerted effort to reach-out to Asian and other immi-grant business owners. This outreach initiative organized focus groupsand meetings in local Asian restaurants to begin a dialogue to determinewhat were the needs and issues of Asian businesses, to explain how thechamber may be of assistance in their business development, and toinvite Asian entrepreneurs to become members and join the board ofdirectors. Interestingly, the chamber’s efforts were of no avail, as Asianbusiness owners again failed to become members or to fill board vacan-cies that were reserved for them. This unsuccessful attempt to attract



Asian entrepreneurs probably failed for some of the same reasons as didthe AABA. In addition, it appears that many Asian business owners stillsee the chamber as a non-immigrant organization. In particular, themain activities of the chamber, such as organizing business mixers andnetworking sessions are probably not considered useful business oppor-tunities by Asian entrepreneurs.

Another reason that many felt a need for an Asian American BusinessAssociation at the time was that most existing business developmentprograms failed to connect and assist the newcomer community becausethey expect the Asian business community to fit into and feel comfort-able with a traditional approach. Many Asian business owners com-plained that business loan programs from the city and the Lowell Plan(and others) failed to help them. They considered the process to bebureaucratic, confusing, inflexible, and time-consuming. A recent expe-rience of the Lowell Small Business Assistance Center with its TechnicalAssistance Program (TAP) provides an instructive example of this dis-connect between traditional business development programs and theAsian business community. TAP was funded by the City of Lowell andrequired all businesses receiving technical assistance to provide copies oftheir tax return. Many Asian entrepreneurs initially expressed an inter-est in receiving technical assistance until they were informed that copiesof tax returns were needed to receive services under this program. Thereappears to be a cultural gap that affects this disconnect.

An explanation of this “disconnect” was offered at a meeting of theLowell Small Business Assistance Center when a member of the AABAboard tried to explain why most Asian business owners would not feelcomfortable entering the Small Business Assistance Center or using itsservices. He went on to try to explain the underlying cultural issues.Because the Center was located in a newly renovated building in thedowntown on the third floor, it would intimidate the community. Thisboard member went on to explain that the difference between an Asianmarket and Market Basket Supermarket is that the latter supermarket isbright, new, well organized and clean in appearance. However, the Asianmarket was very different in appearance and the Cambodian businesscommunity would only feel comfortable in an environment thatappeared Asian, not like an American corporation.

Many governmental and traditional business loan programs alsoclash with the realities of the newcomer community. Traditional financeprograms typically use certain ratios and criteria to evaluate the viabilityof newcomer businesses that really undervalue the strengths of theseenterprises. This undervaluing prevents many newcomer businesses



from qualifying for traditional financing. Michael Swack, the Dean ofthe School of Community Economic Development at Southern NewHampshire University recalled an instance when a very successful andprofitable restaurant run by an immigrant family was rejected for a busi-ness expansion loan. Afterwards, Michael Swack approached the bank tounderstand why this profitable restaurant had been denied financing.The banker explained that the ratio of food costs to gross sales was muchhigher than is typically found in the restaurant industry. When Swackapproached the restaurant owner about this issue, the owner explainedthat he had a large family that basically lived at the restaurant and wasfed there. In addition, he described how he often helped local families inneed by feeding them for free in his restaurant. It was obvious that thesefactors would not be seen in a traditional restaurant and contributed tohis food costs within the business but also to its success. Swack and therestaurant owner later met with the bank and educated the loan officerto these factors and the bank eventually approved the loan. The aboveexamples are indicative of how traditional approaches to business andeconomic development can clash with the realities of what is needed forsuccessful development in newcomer communities.

Recently, within the Asian business community some practices havebegun to change. The method of raising business capital among familyand friends in an informal way has become less common, perhaps as aresult of the few instances of individuals leaving the area without payingback business loans. In addition, younger immigrant entrepreneurs areadopting conventional business practices by using more traditionalfinancing avenues and options. In addition, younger Southeast Asianbusiness owners are beginning to expand into non-immigrant markets.For example, an Asian-owned real estate firm has an office in Lowell,staffed by Asian salespersons, that caters to the immigrants and anotheroffice in a nearby town, staffed by non-immigrant sales reps, that servesthe non-immigrant market. Furthermore, some loan programs are nowmore flexible and younger immigrant entrepreneurs have become moreaccepting of traditional lending institutions. Moreover, the number ofAsian entrepreneurs receiving assistance from the Lowell Small BusinessAssistance Center has increased to approximately 16%.

Clashes in Developmental Approaches

To understand how local governmental policies contribute to these clashesin the Merrimack Valley newcomer communities, it is useful to considerthe two predominant basic models of local economic development.37 The



corporate center approach places the emphasis on economic develop-ment on real estate development, commercial and industrial attraction.The alternative approach focuses on economic development activitiesand goals of economically disadvantaged communities. Both of theseapproaches are entrepreneurial and involve some form of partnershipswith the private sector.

Under the corporate center approach, the private sector predominatesand the public sector role is limited largely to creating an economic cli-mate that is conducive to private investment (usually outside invest-ment). The local planning process typically has the objective of generaleconomic growth and tax expansion and is often inaccessible to immi-grant, refugee, and other minority and low-income groups. Public sectorresources are usually focused on serving the needs of private industries.Local government commonly spends a great deal of effort in attractingoutside investors and companies. Generally, local officials will work toattract what is perceived to be high-growth sectors, such as tourism,high-end services, and high technology. In addition, the public sectorwill target companies who are considering moving headquarters orbranch operations into the city. Furthermore, under this approach, localgovernment will concentrate development in the downtown, particularlyon larger real estate development projects. Moreover, most job creationactivities are focused on highly skilled and white-collar workers. A morerecent variation of this approach is the conversion of unused downtowncommercial and industrial space to high-end condos and apartments toattract a higher income residential sector that will require a restaurantand service sector to meet their needs and desires.

Under the alternative approach, the public sector attempts to guide andinfluence private sector investment decisions that will create desired eco-nomic development objectives that benefit the broad community. In par-ticular, public sector planning objectives usually are accessible to andbenefit low-income and newer immigrant and refugee groups. Local gov-ernment will provide resources conditionally to the private sector to insuresupport of desired economic development options. These public sectorinterventions will usually benefit low-income and ethnic minoritiesdirectly (i.e. ESL programs, retraining of displaced workers, transporta-tion, and childcare). In addition, city officials will target sectors that meetimportant local economic needs. The public sector will also target thedevelopment and expansion of locally-owned businesses with less empha-sis on attracting outside establishments. Locations of development projectsare usually decentralized and the focus is on a broader array of local laborneeds, particularly on blue-collar, unskilled, and underemployed workers.



In many ways the latter model—with its focus on the developmentand expansion of local businesses—is more consistent with the approachthat is emerging in the immigrant communities. Yet the city of Lowellhas pursued a “Destination City” strategy that falls to a large degreeunder the corporate center approach. The city has invested considerableresources on large projects within the downtown in the hope that theywill attract tourists. The focus has been on attracting outside developers,businesses, restaurants, and specialty shops as part of this strategy.However, the city has also used some aspects of the traditional approachas city leaders have conditionally provided resources that support theirvision of economic development, which is more compatible with thecorporate center approach. The city of Lowell has in recent years pur-sued a strategy to attract non-immigrant artists to the downtown.Policymakers believe that a visible artist community in the downtownwill make their “Destination City” strategy more successful by attractingmore tourists. While a serious shortage of affordable housing existswithin the newcomer community, the city is investing considerableresources to build artist housing.

By pursuing a more corporate center approach, the City of Lowell hasoverlooked how newcomer communities contribute to local economies.Newcomer communities bring assets, for example, that could supporttourism or “Destination City” strategies, yet many of these assets havenot been fully incorporated into the economic development strategiesemployed by local communities. For example, the successful marketingof newcomer restaurants and specialty shops has the potential to pumpconsiderable dollars into a local economy. Many large cities have demon-strated the value of this approach, having successfully marketed ethnicneighborhoods, such as “Chinatown” and “Little Italy,” as important pil-lars to local tourism campaigns. In addition, the marketing of newcomerculture can generate sizeable income. The presentation of cultural festi-vals, ethnic artistic performances, and arts and crafts fairs have also gen-erated considerable revenue on the local level.

The examination of other key institutions in Lowell sheds additionallight on these clashes in development approaches. The Lowell Plan wasfounded in 1979 as a nonprofit economic development organization toassist in the rebirth of the city. Since its inception, the Lowell Plan, whichwas financed and dominated by local banks, has pursued a supportive andparallel track to the initiatives carried out by the city of Lowell. The LowellPlan has created loan programs for small business development and com-mercial downtown expansion. In addition, it has funded second mort-gages for residential housing rehabilitation and first-time homebuyers



programs. However, the Lowell Plan has generally followed the tradi-tional approach to community economic development by investingresources in the creation of strategic plans to revitalize and finance thedowntown and major projects like the Tsongas Arena and the LeLacheurPark. The Lowell Plan has also supported the “Destination City” strategyby financing a marketing campaign to tourists by promoting the imageof Lowell as a cultural and sport mecca. The city financed the promotionof the annual Lowell folk festival, general sporting, and cultural events.However, many in the newcomer community feel that the Lowell Planhas fallen short when it comes to promoting immigrant cultural festivalsand programs to help immigrant businesses to position themselves tobenefit from a local tourism strategy.

The city of Lowell has not entirely neglected policies that fit morefirmly within the alternative approach. In 1994, the city received a federalgrant to become an Enterprise Community (EC). Under this grant, theneighborhoods in the city with the lowest incomes and highest concen-tration of newcomer groups were designated an Enterprise CommunityZone. As a requirement of the grant, a board of directors was electedwithin these neighborhoods to oversee the project’s implementation.

The majority of Enterprise Community board members were electedfrom among newcomer groups. Unlike the city of Lowell’s tourism-driven “Destination City” strategy, the Enterprise Community wasdirected by and focused on the immigrant community. Consequently,the newcomer community was viewed as an asset and activities were ori-ented to their needs rather than those of Lowell’s wealthier neighbor-hoods. The EC board funded a study to assess the skills, interests, andneeds of residents within these communities. Based on this assessment,the EC established a RFP process to fund organizations that would pro-vide services and programs to expand small business development, edu-cational enhancement and ESL, job readiness and technical skillstraining, and expand child care. The EC invested in the human andsocial infrastructure of immigrant and low-income communities.

As the examples in this section suggest, the city of Lowell’s decisionsabout economic development have broad implications for the future ofLowell and its newcomer residents. If the city were to adopt the alterna-tive approach to their “Destination City” strategy, they would focusmore on assets and needs that currently exist in Lowell. Instead of invest-ing considerable resources in attracting outside restaurants and specialtyshops they might look at the assets within the immigrant and refugeecommunity that could attract tourists to Lowell. There are opportunitiesto develop markets and develop the ethnic businesses that are likely to



attract tourists. The successes in the North End and Chinatown in Bostonas tourist attractions and economic development successes representinstructive examples of such an approach. Furthermore, the potentialgrowth of newcomer businesses is limited when they are unable to sellgoods and services to markets outside of their community.38

Conclusion

These initiatives have helped us explore three questions: (1) What inno-vative infrastructure developments in the newcomer community havetaken place in the Merrimack Valley? (2) What strengths of the new-comer community typically go unrecognized by traditional approaches tocommunity economic development? (3) What clashes in models of com-munity economic development emerge between immigrants and plan-ners engaging in traditional practices? We have highlighted some novelinfrastructure developments within the Southeast Asian community thathave made important contributions to overall community development.Many of these are clearly embedded within the cultural experiences ofthese immigrants and refugees, such as the development of the SoutheastAsian Water Festival, community-based organizations, informal lendingmethods, and transnational and locally-based ethnic businesses.

Unfortunately, incorporated into these innovative infrastructures arethe very assets of these newcomer communities that are unrecognized bythe traditional community economic development players. The informalmechanisms and social networks that propel the startup and expansionof numerous Southeast Asian businesses and help ensure the long-termsuccess of these enterprises are just a few of the strengths that have beenundervalued by local government and non-immigrant civic and businessleaders. In addition, the existence of transnational entrepreneurs inLowell who depend on regular commercial activity with Cambodia fortheir economic prosperity is consistent with the experiences of otherestablished immigrant communities in the United States. However, theclashes of models of community economic development between immi-grants and nonimmigrants are quite evident within Lowell. This discon-nect is hindering the ability of the Southeast Asian community toachieve its potential for community development. Furthermore, theseclashes of models are preventing the assets within the Asian communityfrom reaching their fullest potential. Unfortunately, unrealized commu-nity economic development assets within the Southeast Asian commu-nity have negative consequences within both the immigrant andnonimmigrant communities. Our hope is that our discussion of these



issues will contribute to a better understanding of how the immigrantand nonimmigrant communities can collaborate more effectively inorder to enhance overall community development.

Notes

1. See, for example, X, De S. Briggs, “Social Capital and the Cities: Advise toChange Agents,” National Civic Review 86 (2) (1997), 111–17; S. Callahan,“The Capital that Counts,” Commonwealth 123 (20) (1996) 7–8; H. Chang,“Democracy, Diversity, and Social Capital,” National Development Review 86(2) (1997) 141–47; D. Fettig, “Rethinking Community EconomicDevelopment,” Fedgazzette 1 (January 1995); C. Flora and J. Flora,“Entrepreneurial Social Infrastructure: A Necessary Ingredient,” Annual ofthe American Academy 529 (1993), 48–58; C. Gardner, “Building SocialCapital: The Case of Mineral County, Nevada,” Economic DevelopmentReview 14 (2) (1996), 60; M. Irwin, “Social Capital of Local Communities,”Metroscope (1998) 13–19; I. B. Kawachi, B. P. Kennedy, and K. Lochner,“Long Live Community: Social Capital as Public Health,” The AmericanProspect 35 (Nov/Dec 1997) 56–59; J. O. Gibson, G. T. Kingsley, J. B.McNeely, “Community Building: Coming of Age,” (1997), available at:http://www.urban.org/community/combuild.htm; G. Laws, “Globalization,Immigration, and Changing Social Relations in U.S cities,” The Analysis ofthe American Academy 551 (May 1997), 89–104; J. Messer, “AgencyCommunion, and the Formation of Social Capital,” Nonprofit andVoluntarily Sector Quarterly 21 (1) (1998), 5–12; R. Miller, “Healthy Bostonand Social Capital: Application, Dynamics and Limitations,” National CivicReview 86 (2) (1997) 157–65.

2. M. Irwin, “Social Capital of Local Communities,” Metroscope (1998) 13–19.3. Ibid.4. A. Okagaki, “Strengthening Rural Economies: Programs that Target

Promising Sectors of a Local Economy,” (Washington, DC: Center forCommunity Change, 1998), http://communitychange.org/default.asp.

5. Flora and Flora, “Entrepreneurial Social Infrastructure,” 48–58.6. C. Gardner, “Building Social Capital,” 60.7. G. T. Kingsley, et al., “Long Live Community Building Coming of Age.”8. J. Jennings, “Social Capital, Race, and the Future of Inner-City

Neighborhoods,” 5.9. R. M. Silverman, “CDCS and Charitable Organizations in the Urban South:

Mobilizing Social Capital Based on Race and Religion for NeighborhoodRevitalization,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30 (2) (April 2001).

10. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of AmericanCommunity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

11. R. Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work,Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002).



12. D. J. Monti, Jr., “Old Whines in New Bottles: Robert Putnam, RichardFlorida, and the ‘Community’ Problem in Contemporary America,” paperbased on presentation to the American Sociological Association, SanFrancisco (2004).

13. Ibid., 14.14. Chang, “Democracy, Diversity, and Social Capital,” 141–47.15. Laws, “Globalization, Immigration, and Changing Social Relations,” 89–104.16. A. Portes and M. Zhou, “Gaining the Upper Hand: Economic Mobility

Among Immigrant and Domestic Minorities,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15(4) (1992), 491–522.

17. J. Santiago and J. Jennings, “The Latino Business Community of Lawrence,Massachusetts: A Profile and Analysis.” Reports can be obtained at TheInstitute for Community and Workforce Development, Northern EssexCommunity College (Lawrence, Mass., 2000).

18. Portes and Zhou, “Gaining the Upper Hand,” 491–522.19. The multiplier effect is a quantification of the amount to which each dollar

continues to circulate for a “multiplied effect.” See R. S. Browne, “Cash Flowsin a Ghetto Community,” The Review of Black Political Economy 1 (1997); B.Harrison, “Ghetto Economic Development: A Survey,” Journal of EconomicLiterature 12 (March 1974), 1–37; W. H. Oakland F. T. Sparrow, and H. LSettler, “Ghetto Multipliers: A Case Study of Hough,” Journal of RegionalScience II (December 1971) 337–45; R. L. Schaffer, Income Flows in UrbanPoverty Areas (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1973).

20. K. Wilson and A. Martin, “Ethnic Enclaves: A Comparison of the Cuban andBlack Economies in Miami,” American Journal of Sociology 88 (1982)135–60.

21. Portes and Zhou, “Gaining the Upper Hand,” 491–522.22. M. Bendick, Jr. and M. L. Egan, “Business Development in the Inner City:

Enterprise with Community Links,” Community and Economic Development(1991).

23. Please refer to the following sources: J. Persky, D. Ranney, and W. Wiewel,“Import Substitution and Local Economic Development,” EconomicDevelopment Quarterly (February 1993), 18; H. Shurman, Going Local (NewYork: The Free Press, 1998).

24. L. G. Basch, N. G. Schiller, and C. Blanc-Szanton, Nation Unbound:Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and De-territories Nation-States (Langhorne, PA: Gordon and Breach, 1994), 6.

25. Ibid.26. A. J. Portes, W. Haller, and L. E. Guarnizo, “Transnational Entrepreneurs:

An Alternative Form of Immigrant Economic Adaptation,” AmericanSociology Review 67 (2002), 278–98.

27. Please refer to the following sources: L. E. Guamizo, “One Country in Two:Dominican-Owned Firms in the United States and the DominicanRepublic,” Ph. D. Dissertation, Department of Sociology, The Johns HopkinsUniversity (1992); M. Zhou and C. L. Bankston, III, “Social Capital and the



Adaptation of Second Generation: The Case of Vietnamese Youth in newOrleans East,” International Migration Review 28 (4) (1994), 775–99.

28. Portes, Haller, and Guarnizo, “Transnational Entrepreneurs,” 284.29. Ibid., 278–98.30. A. Portes, “The Debates and Significance of Immigrant Transnationalism,”

Global Networks 1 (3) (2001) 181–93.31. Please refer to the following sources: P. Levitt, J. DeWind, S. Vetrosvec,

“International Perspectives on Transnational Migration: An Introduction,”Center for Migration Studies of New York 37 (3) (2003), 565–75; A. Portes,“Conclusion: Theoretical Convergencies and Emperical Evidence in theStudy of Immigrant Transnationalism,” Center for Migration Studies of NewYork 37 (3) (2003), 874–92.

32. Levitt, DeWind, and Vetrosvec, “International Perspectives,” 565–75.33. R. Robinson, “Globalization: Immigrants’ Transnational Agency and

Economic Development in their Homelands,” Focal (2004), 1–12.34. Please refer to the following sources: O. E. Nielsen, “International Migration

Review,” Center for Migration Studies of New York, Inc. 37 (3) (2003), 760–87;Portes, “Debates and Significance of Immigrant Trasnationalism,” 181–93.

35. Nielsen, “International Migration Review,” 760–87.36. Okagaki, “Strengthening Rural Economies.”37. Please refer to the following sources: J. E. Blakely and K. T. Bradshaw,

Planning Local Economic Development Theory and Practice ( London: SagePublication, 2002); C. J. Robinson, “Municipal approaches to Economic:Growth and distribution policy,” Journal of the American PlanningAssociation 55 (1989), 283–95.

38. T. Bates, “Urban Economics Transformation and Minority BusinessOpportunity,” The Reviews of the Black Political Economy (Winter 1984/1985), 21–36.



Chapter 7

From Africville to Globalville:Race, Poverty, and UrbanGovernance in Halifax,

Nova Scotia

Karen Bridget Murray*

Lester B. Salamon has declared that a “global associational revolu-tion” is underway that is both a cause and consequence of global-

ization. According to Salamon, globalization is not only realigning therelative positions of nation-states and corporations, but is also inextri-cably tied to a “powerful citizen sector . . . laying claim to an expandedvoice on both the national and international stages.”1 Relying as he hason macro-level quantitative data, it is easy to see why he has come tothis conclusion. There has been a worldwide quantitative expansion ofvoluntary sector activity, particularly since the 1960s. What Salamondoes not address, however, is the qualitative dimensions of thesechanges, the types of civic engagement being promoted, and the rolethat political authorities have played in these processes.

This chapter attempts to address these issues by presenting a prelim-inary assessment of the role that political authorities have played inshaping the “associational revolution” in the Gottingen district ofHalifax, a part of the city with ties to Africville, a small Black commu-nity that was razed through a 1960s urban redevelopment scheme. Indoing so, it shows how public officials have not only implicitly and

* Funding for this research, which is gratefully acknowledged, was provided by the SocialSciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No.832-2002-0114).


explicitly encouraged the expansion of civil society organizations but alsothey have done so in ways that have significant effects that are inextrica-bly tied to processes of racial marginalization. In order to develop thesearguments, the paper begins by setting out salient aspects of the Canadiancontext as well as some of the limitations in the scholarly literatureattempting to grasp the significance of social capital to democratic gover-nance. It then focuses on how the example of Gottingen shows the cen-trality of political institutions in shaping the valorization of certain formsof social capital and the racial implications of these processes.

The Context

In recent years, in Canada as elsewhere, urban centers have taken on agreater predominance in economic policy. Following worldwide trends,urban areas are now depicted as the engines of what is seen as an emerg-ing global economy. This emphasis has gone hand in hand with a grow-ing orthodoxy in relation to social policy that holds that civil societyorganizations are better placed to address issues of poverty and its vari-ous aspects of social and economic disadvantage.

Although research on the role of the voluntary sector is still relativelyin its infancy in Canada, evidence suggests that the Canadian context isnot dissimilar to worldwide trends. Over the last several decades, andespecially since the mid-1990s, Canadian governments have establisheda plethora of initiatives to promote a larger role for the nonprofit sector.The rationales of these programs often hinge explicitly on assumptionsabout the value of “social capital” to democratic institutions andprocesses. Voluntary and nonprofit participation is held up as a “publicgood” that engenders trust, reciprocity, information-sharing, and normsand sanctions capable of promoting stability and a sense of belonging-ness. Widely seen as vital nodes for achieving the health and well beingof individuals, communities, societies, and political institutions, pro-grams promoting the nonprofit sector have garnered the support ofpolitical authorities and voluntary organizations alike.2

The intellectual basis of social capital initiatives are rooted in ideasmost famously set out by Robert Putnam in his Making DemocracyWork.3 One of Putnam’s main claims was that the civic engagement thatsocial capital brings forth precedes politics and government. The impli-cation is that governments can neither tamper with nor modify socialcapital, leading to the pessimistic conclusion that you’ve either got it oryou don’t. Policy initiatives aimed at engendering social capital aretherefore anathema to Putnam’s central proposition. They raise the ques-tion of how political institutions might shape social capital itself, which



is a point that Alexis de Tocqueville emphasized in the even more cele-brated work Democracy in America.

Recent work on social capital has returned to these Tocquevilleanroots by seeking to understand the role that political institutions play infostering specific forms of civic engagement; in doing so, they highlightthe fallacy of assuming a relationship between social capital and strongdemocratic institutions.4 While these studies are adding new layers ofanalytical complexity to our understanding of the political implicationsof social capital, the racial ramifications of these processes remainlargely unexamined. This is a major gap in much of the literature onthese matters, and one that this chapter attempts to highlight by sketch-ing out the centrality not only of political institutions, but also of racial-ized practices, in the shaping of norms concerning predominantconceptions of legitimate forms of social capital. An example drawnfrom the Regional Municipality of Halifax (HRM) is particularly illumi-nating. Located in the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax was created in1996 through a process of amalgamation of four formerly separate polit-ical units: a much smaller City of Halifax, along with Dartmouth,Bedford, and Halifax County. Amalgamation established the newHalifax as the thirteenth largest municipal population in Canada. With apopulation of 355,945, it is the largest urban center north of Boston andeast of Quebec City. Almost 40% of Nova Scotia’s total population residesin the city, which constitutes 15% of the population of the four provincesthat make up the Atlantic region of Canada. Comprising a geographicalspace of almost 6,000 km2, or about ten times the size of Toronto, Halifaxis also a hub of commerce and industry on the East coast with a ten-bil-lion dollar economy.5

In 2005, the Halifax regional government embarked upon a process ofdesigning an urban development plan, focused on the inner city, whichhas a high concentration of visible minorities, as indicated in Figure 1. Alarge Black population is located in this locale in a district adjacent to thecity’s main economic district. While the issue of race is not explicitlytaken up in the proposed plan that was completed in 2006, the processdesigned to develop the plan holds significant racial implications. Beforetaking up this point, it is important to appreciate the historical salienceof the Gottingen area to race relations in the city, and specifically tounderstand its links to Africville.

Africville was a small Black community covering fifteen acres of landon the northern tip of the Halifax Peninsula that was settled in the eigh-teenth century. While its exact origins are unknown, much of its popu-lation arrived after the War of 1812 as refugees and many others were

FROM AFRICVILLE TO GLOBALVILLE 135


their descendants. Initially, the area was referred to as “Campbell Road”but by the turn of the century it had come to be known as Africville. Thecommunity had many attributes often celebrated in contemporary polit-ical debates as constituting strong social capital that included a school, achurch, and a post office. According to Paul Erickson, “Seaview AfricanUnited Baptist Church was the heartbeat of the community, stagingdemonstrative Sunday services, including a colourful sunrise service onEaster followed by spectacular baptisms in the waters of Bedford Basin.”6

Africville gave birth to and fostered the development of George Dixon,who went on to become a world boxing champion; Duke Ellington vis-ited Africville to see his spouse’s father who lived there.

While people living in Africville might have seen their communityas vibrant, this was not how it was viewed and treated by politicalauthorities. In 1854, the authorities allowed the Nova Scotia Railway todivide Africville in half, and later permitted two additional railwaylines to be established only a few feet away from houses. The proxim-ity of homes to these rail lines created several environmental hazards,including pollution from train stacks, noise, and a dangerous environment


Figure 1 Distribution of Visible Minorities in the Halifax Regional Municipality, 2001

Figure 1 was created by Andrea Kmetty and Shuguang Wang and printed here with permission fromMetropolis Canada.


for young children, several of whom were killed chasing after “trains toretrieve lumps of coal to heat their family homes.” In the late 1850s, thecity created a depository for “night soil” close to Africville and establishedthe Rockhead Prison about a thousand yards away. Later, in the 1870s, theInfectious Diseases Hospital was set up, which created further contamina-tion around the Bedford Basin. “Besides all of this,” Erickson wrote,“Africville was encroached upon by huge power transmission towers, oilstorage tanks, a coal-handling facility, a fertilizer manufacturing plant, anda slaughterhouse. The coup de grace came in the 1950s when the city relo-cated its open refuse dump a stone’s throw away.”7 Even as late as the 1960s,Africville was cut off from sewage and water lines offered in other parts ofthe city, even though residents paid taxes just the same.8

When urban development plans began to proliferate across NorthAmerica in the 1960s, Africville became the focus of public attention. Theformer City of Halifax recruited Gordon Stephenson in the 1950s to devisean urban strategy. In his 1957 report, he described Africville in this way:

There is a little frequented part of the City, overlooking Bedford Basin,which represents an unusual problem for any community to face. In whatmay be described as an encampment, or shack town, there live some sev-enty negro families . . . The citizens of Africville live a life apart. On asunny day, small children roam at will in a spacious area and swim in whatamounts to their private lagoon. In winter, life is far from idyllic. In termsof the physical condition of buildings and sanitation, the story isdeplorable. Shallow wells and cesspools, in close proximity, are scatteredabout the slopes between the shacks . . . There are only two things to be said.The families will have to be rehoused in the near future. The land which theynow occupy will be required for the future development of the city.9

The City decided to follow through on Stephenson’s recommendationsfor Africville and in the early 1960s, after minimal public input from thearea’s residents, political authorities commenced the removal ofAfricville citizens from their homes.

In recent years, the Africville Genealogical Society has been at theforefront of demands for redress for the former inhabitants and theirdescendants. Rather than sound urban policy, the razing of Africville hasbecome an emblem of human rights violations. In 2001, Denise Allengave a speech to the United Nations detailing the basis of these violations:

First: The systemic denial of services and human rights. For exampleAfricville residents were subject to the same taxation mechanisms as citi-zens of Halifax. However, they were never provided with basic amenities.



Petitions for public education, water, recreational and play ground facili-ties, ambulance services firefighters, paved roads, social assistance,garbage pick-up and removal, and even a cemetery were all denied.

Second: Environmental Degradation. In this case city officials permit-ted the following to be established within walking distance of Africvillehomes and play areas: three systems of railway tracks; an open city dump;disposal pits for Halifax toxic waste; a hospital for infectious diseases; astone and coal crushing plant; a toxic waste dump; a bone-meal plant; acotton factory; a rolling mill / nail factory; a slaughterhouse; sewage dis-posal units; a prison; and a port facility for handling coal.

Third: Racist Hiring Practices. For the municipal authorities of Halifax,Africville was used to host a fleet of toxic industries but its residents wereto be denied access to well-paying jobs. In fact, employers reserved andhired whites for the better paying jobs. It was this practice that gave birthto nepotism and tokenism. This created an additional obstacle that onlyexacerbated the economic situation in Africville.10

As the history of Africville highlights, social capital is not a natural, self-evident, and quantifiable entity. Rather, attributes associated with socialcapital become salient through political practices that legitimize certainforms of civic engagement while devaluing others. Paradoxically, how-ever, while Africville has become increasingly embraced as an integralaspect of Black history, a similar devaluing of Gottingen, which has closeties to Africville, has begun to unfold.

The Africville relocation scheme brought many former residents tothe Gottingen area to live in a 250-unit public housing developmentlocated in Gottingen: Uniacke Square. Like Africville, Gottingen sharesmany features that are said to be characteristic of strong social capital. Itis a hub, not only for Black political activism, but also for fostering Blackidentity in arts and business. And, like Africville, Gottingen is markedby social inequalities that have been shaped in important ways by gov-ernment policies. For example, until the 1970s Gottingen was Halifax’seconomic hub. However, retail/commercial activity declined by 31%during the 1960s and 1970s, a time coinciding with the arrival ofAfricville residents.

The dynamics shaping these transformations have yet to be fullyexamined. What we do know is that there was an apparent “Whiteflight” that followed the creation of Uniacke Square, as Gottingen’s pop-ulation declined by 5,400, or 42%. The one-time economic hub came tohave one of the highest poverty rates in the city. While recent figures areunavailable, the 1996 census showed that 65% of the 4,494 area resi-dents had low incomes, and 26% relied upon some form of government



support. The number of renters also swelled during these years from 7%to 83%. Importantly, numerous voluntary and nonprofit social organiza-tions, the supposed bedrocks of social capital, emerged along theGottingen corridor. Ninety percent of these entities were established inthe 1980s and 1990s, which provides another measure of the extent towhich social disadvantage came to mark the vicinity. The changes thatunfolded in Gottingen in the last three decades of the twentieth centurywere unique in the city. No other part saw this combination of transfor-mations. In the 1990s, while a reverse trend emerged as the area showedsigns of re-gentrification, poverty rates remained high.11

While government policies were important to shaping the racial char-acter of Gottingen, they were also significant to the emergence and per-sistence of high levels of economic and social disadvantage. First, afterthe 1960s, even though political authorities made promise to invest inthe area, they never followed through. Second, changes in other policyareas augmented and deepened social inequalities emerging inGottingen. Perhaps nowhere was this more obvious than in the generalgovernment retrenchment from social programs that took shape espe-cially in the 1980s and 1990s.12 During these years, welfare incomes as apercent of the poverty line were dramatically decreased. In 1989, theywere at 50% of the poverty line, in 1996, they were at 43%, and in 2003,they were down to 31%.13 Cuts were accompanied by the increasingexpectation that private, nonprofit, and voluntary welfare organizations,such as those that proliferated in Gottingen, would fill in the gaps. Thiscontext of governmental abdication of responsibility for the social andeconomic well-being of citizens would obviously play out more harshlyin an area such as Gottingen, which was already suffering from theeffects of economic decay.

This historical setting is important when considering governmentalprograms aimed at harnessing the nonprofit sector in the area of socialwelfare. In the Canadian setting, research has shown that such initia-tives, while ostensibly aimed at empowering local organizations andgroups, are often based on rationales geared towards programs and serv-ices attempting to regulate “problematic” people. One study found thatsuch programs individualize social problems and attempt to treat therisks they pose for mainstream populations. Harm reduction strategiesare emblematic of these sensibilities, as they treat social inequalities asthe product of subjective conditions detached from broader structuresbeyond an individual’s control.14 These orientations are woven into thefabric of institutions that are required to adapt to government regula-tions and funding guidelines.



Recent research has shown that such policies are transforming localorganizations as they become more inwardly focused on organizationalsurvival. This survival, in turn, is predicated upon the existence of peo-ple living in poverty or who are otherwise socially and economically dis-advantaged. Without social inequalities, organizations would lose theirmodus operandi as defined by broader political dictates. What we seehere, in other words, is a dynamic interplay between the wider institu-tional framework and the activities of local nonprofit entities. While thiscomplex relationship has not been fully explored, it is clear that assump-tions about social capital as a free-forming manifestation of vibrantdemocracies are seriously flawed. In the case of Gottingen, as withAfricville, institutions have fostered social disparities; in Gottingen,moreover, they were similarly bound up with the proliferation of civilsociety entities.

With this backdrop in mind, we can now see the racial ramificationsflowing from the recent effort at devising a plan for Halifax’s future. Theprocess of developing a plan was aimed at providing “direction on howgrowth and development [would] occur . . . over the next twenty-fiveyears with regards to the environment, economy, settlement, transporta-tion and Harbour.”15 With the launching of the regional planning processpolitical officials were positioned to fulfill earlier promises for develop-ment, but as was the case with Africville, they would pay little regard toGottingen’s significance to the Black community. The working draft of theregional plan stated that one of the aims was to recognize the city’s diversecitizenry, community, and geography but not one of the guiding princi-ples explained what this meant in practice. Only a general reference wasmade to preserving and promoting “sustainability of cultural and histor-ical assets.”16 The value of these attributes was not their importance to theprotection and enhancement of the lives of individuals and groups butrather it was the presumed economic worth of these attributes that wasconsidered salient. These economic objectives hinged on the concept ofthe “Capital District,” which was defined as including the most urbanizedareas of the city: Downtown Halifax, Downtown Dartmouth, Gottingen,Spring Garden Road, and Quinpool Road.17 The Capital District’s impor-tance was said to rest on its $80 million tax base, concentration of jobs,and attractiveness as a tourist destination that was reported to contribute$613 million and 82,000 jobs to the city’s economy.18

In short, the Capital District was described as the “regional andprovincial center for government, finance, culture, entertainment andbusiness,” but the primary emphasis was on its economic potential. Inthe Capital District framework, Gottingen was defined, along with the



other local areas, as “belonging” to “every resident” of the city.19 To theextent that people living in Gottingen were to be included in the publicconsultations, they would do so as individual members of the widerCapital District rather than as members tied together by common his-torical, economic, political, racial, social, or affective bonds. No regardwas given to evaluating how the needs and aspirations of its memberswere met. So, for example, while there was an obvious need for repairsto social housing units in Gottingen, the draft plan only mentioned thearea in relation to the need to bury electrical power wires as part of a“beautification” strategy.

While it is the case that Gottingen residents might have mobilized topush for their own demands to be included in the Regional Plan, it iseasy to see how difficult this would be. First, the area is one alreadysocially and economically marginalized, which means it is an areaalready at a disadvantage in terms of the resources at its disposal tomobilize politically. Second, the frame of reference of the planningprocess circumscribed the range of issues that were considered to belegitimate to the dialogues. In short, the goals and rationales of theworking plan ensured the primacy of position of the vision of urbandevelopment designed by political authorities.

Given this backdrop it is perhaps not surprising that in August 2006,when the regional plan was waiting the provincial government’sapproval, the eighty submissions made during the public consultationprocess were found to be:

supportive overall, although [there were] many suggested additional smallchanges to consider. Many of the suggested changes were already coveredin the draft plan and had been contemplated (for future functional plans).In these instances, clarification was all that was needed. A few errors werepicked up which have been corrected.20

In other words, the final document, like the draft, failed to address thehistorical significance of Gottingen’s Black community or how the urbanplan would protect and foster the area’s unique identity and contributions.

The regional plan was just that: a plan. But it was also a representationof how Halifax was perceived from the standpoint of those who devisedthe plan. So it was not benign or devoid of political import unless imple-mented as written. Sprinkled with platitudes about diversity, the plan wasa manifestation of dominant political rationales that helped to defineforms of civic engagement that would be promoted and encouraged andthose that would not. The echoes of Africville are impossible to miss.



Conclusion

Debates about the relationship between social capital and democraticgovernance often depict the former as a self-evident manifestation exist-ing a priori in society and expressed through institutions. Manyobservers, however, are returning to the Tocquevillean approaches tothese issues by focusing more centrally on the role of institutions inshaping specific forms of civil associations. In doing so, they haveencouraged greater attention to contextual dimensions that define thepolitical salience of social capital. This chapter has argued that race is animportant feature of these processes but that it is often overlooked inthese discussions. As the example of Gottingen illustrates, historicallegacies, defined and shaped by race relations, are inextricably woventhrough the institutional fabrics upon which governments are now moreactively seeking to harness voluntary and nonprofit energies. As thisstudy has shown, this shift is intertwined with modifications in widersocial, economic, and power structures, and simultaneously implicatedin processes that marginalize and silence racially disadvantaged areas.The historical moments of Africville and Globalville are perhaps not asfar apart as they might seem.

Notes

1. L. M. Salamon, “The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector,” Foreign Affairs 73 (4)(1994), 109.

2. K. Murray, “Do Not Disturb: ‘Vulnerable Populations’ in FederalGovernment Discourses and Practices,” Canadian Journal of Urban Research(2004), 50–69.

3. R. M. Putnam, R. Leonardi, and R. Nannetti, Making Democracy Work: CivicTraditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).

4. A. Fried, “The Strange Disappearance of Alexis de Tocqueville in Putnam’sAnalysis of Social Capital,” in Social Capital: Critical Perspectives onCommunity and “Bowling Alone,” S. L. McLean, D. A. Schultz, and M.B.Steger (eds.) (New York and London: New York University Press, 2002); W.Maloney, G. Smith, and G. and G. Stoker, “Social Capital and UrbanGovernance: Adding a More Contextualized ‘Top-Down Perspective,”Political Studies 48 (2000), 802–20.

5. Greater Halifax Partnership, “Demographics” (n.d.), http://www.greaterhalifax.com/locate/en/home/facts/demographics/default.aspx (retrievedOctober 20, 2005); Halifax Regional Municipality, “Get with the Plan:Regional Planning Goals and Objectives,” January 27, 2004; Halifax Regional



Municipality, “Halifax Regional Municipality: Key Map,” http://halifaxinfo.com/HfxRegionalMunicipality.pdf (retrieved October 24, 2005); NovaScotia, 2001 Census of Canada: Nova Scotia Perspective (Halifax: Depart-ment of Finance and Statistics Division, 2002).

6. P. A. Erickson, Historic North End Halifax (Halifax: Nimbus Publishing,2004), 130.

7. Ibid.8. H. McCurdy, “Africville: Environmental Racism,” in Faces of Environmental

Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice, L. Westra and P. S. Wenz (eds.)(UK: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995).

9. J. J. Nelson, “The Space of Africville: Creating, Regulating and Rememberingthe Urban ‘Slum,’” in Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White SettlerSociety, S. Razack (ed.) (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002): 211–232; G.Stephenson, A Redevelopment Study of Halifax (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1957).

10. D. Allen, “Lessons from Africville,” addressed to the Plenary Assembly,September 6, 2001. shunpiking: the Discovery Magazine. Annual BlackHistory Supplement 2002, http://www.shunpiking.com/bhs/Lessons%20from%20Africville.htm.

11. B. Melles, “The Relationship Between Policy, Planning and NeighbourhoodChange: The Case of the Gottingen Street Neighbourhood, 1950–2000,”unpublished Masters Thesis, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada,Department of Urban and Rural Planning (2003), 47–49, 73, 78–79.

12. G. Carr, J. Bowden, and J. and J. Storrer, “New Directions in MunicipalServices: Competitive Contracting and Alternative Service Delivery in NorthAmerican Municipalities,” ICURR, June (1997); M. J. Skelly, “AlternativeService Delivery in Canadian Municipalities,” ICURR, February (1997).

13. National Welfare Council, “Welfare Incomes Over Time as a Percentage ofthe Poverty Line, Single Employable People in Atlantic Canada,” (2005),http://www.ncwcnbes.net/htmdocument/reportWelfareIncomes2003/East_Fig5_SingleEmployableCharts_e.pdf (Retrieved October 24, 2005).

14. Murray, “Do Not Disturb,” n. 2.15. HRM, “Guide to HRM’s Draft Regional Plan,” (Spring/Summer 2005).16. HRM, “Principles, Goals, and Objectives,” (n.d.), http://www.halifax.ca/

regionalplanning/RegionalPlanning/GoalsObject.html (retrieved October22, 2005).

17. HRM, “What is the Capital District?” (n.d.), http://www.halifax.ca/capitaldistrict/CapitalDistrict/CapitalDistrict.html (retrieved July 25, 2006).

18. HRM, “Capital District” (Summer/Fall 2003), 1, 4, http://www.halifax.ca/regionalplanning/publications/CDNewsSept2003.pdf (retrieved July 25, 2006).

19. Ibid.20. HRM, “Response to Public Input: Draft No. 2: Regional Plan” (n.d.), http://

www.halifax.ca/regionalplanning/ResponsetoPublicInputDraft2RegionalPlanFeb2006.html (retrieved July 25, 2006).




Chapter 8

The Political Use of SocialCapital in New Zealand

Richard Davis*

In this chapter I examine some features of the use of the term“social capital” in New Zealand in the mid 1990s during the gov-

ernment of the National Party led by Prime Minister Jim Bolger.Social capital became a popular term in sociopolitical discourse fol-lowing a high profile visit to New Zealand by Robert Putnam inAugust 1996. As policy researcher David Robinson wrote, “The inter-est created by Professor Putnam and the subsequent discussion pro-vided a challenge for us to move beyond debating whether he hadadequately described the situation in Italy and the US to consider therelevance of the social capital concept to New Zealand.”1 This relevancemoved not only from the United States and Europe to New Zealand,but also from description to prescription through social capital’s rele-vance to policymaking and direction.

The mid-1990s was a time of social conflict in New Zealand as theNew Right strengthened their resolve to disestablish the welfare stateand “free up” the New Zealand economy. Bolger’s National governmentcontinued and intensified the economic rationalization begun by theLabour Party in the 1980s under Prime Minister David Lange and hisfinance minister Roger Douglas. I will argue here that the entry into

* This is an expanded and updated version of a paper presented to the Annual GeneralMeeting of the Association of Non-Governmental Association of Aotearoa (October14, 1997).


these contentious times of the concept of social capital did not reallyalter anything on the political landscape or in ways of thinking, it sim-ply became another concept over which the government, together withits allies, fought for control in order to advance its own agenda. Thistrend has continued into the present Labour Party administration,despite the diminishing popularity of social capital in recent years.

My analysis is based on a functional definition of “social capital.” Theliterature on social capital features numerous definitions (or leaves itundefined), but for the purposes of this paper I offer and defend the fol-lowing definition of social capital—Social capital refers to the features ofsocial interaction that occur in voluntary groups, communities, and rela-tionships that can be relied on to create or preserve wealth. This is not nec-essarily a new definition of social capital as others, including RobertPutnam, have referred to its “productive potential.”2 Yet Putnam maycomplain, as others might, that mine is an overly capitalistic definitionand ignores the fact that social capital is a public good and hence moresocial than capitalistic. However, I believe that there is much evidencefrom its use in New Zealand (and Australasia more generally) in the1990s, and more recently, that supports such a definition, both in its sav-ing and earning potential. I will show that, given this definition, weshould not be complacent, or even pleased about the use of the concept“social capital” by New Zealand governments and the New Right.

This definition assumes that social capital has something in commonwith other forms of capital. We are all familiar with financial capital thataims to create surplus value. There are now other sorts of capital beingtalked about. “Human capital,” for example, in the words of LesterThurow “is defined as an individual’s productive skills, talents, andknowledge. It is measured in terms of the value (price multiplied byquantity) of goods and services produced.”3

In a recent book, Thomas Stewart defined “intellectual capital” as“intellectual material—knowledge, information, intellectual property,experience—that can be put to use to create wealth.”4 He proceeds toargue that this intellectual capital is replacing physical capital, such asland, factories, and labor in the creation of wealth.

In a capitalist social system most forms of capital are assets owned byindividual people or corporations that are invested for a return. Socialcapital is different from other forms of capital, it is argued, because it issocial in nature and not owned by any individual but is truly a collectivegood on which all in the community can draw without charge. It is dif-ferent in another important way. Social capital, qua capital, is being pro-moted for the saving of money—rather than direct earning of a return



(the idea that a penny saved is a penny earned). I believe that this ismade clear in the ways the New Right changed the fundamental mannerin which they viewed and described society in the late 1990s.

The New Right Context

The socioeconomic context of New Zealand in the 1990s was one whereNew Right ideology was prominent, and where free market capitalismwas running rampant over people and the community. Between 1990,the year it took office, and 1996, the National Government did the fol-lowing things to advance the cause of the free market:

• Passed The Employment Contracts Act, which led to a reduction inunion membership and was a negative influence on unions generally

• Cut welfare benefits in 1991 through finance minister RuthRichardson’s “mother of all budgets”

• Privatized strategic state assets against the will of the public• Reduced social spending in key areas such as health, education

and welfare• Cut taxes for the already well off, which increased inequality

There are many more examples of socially-damaging Governmentactions over the reform years 1984–1999, but these will suffice for thepoints I wish to make about social capital and community.

Part of the New Right strategy has been to set the terms of debateregarding the natural organization of society. This analysis was oftenreductionistic and Manichean. Everything was either a function of thestate or the market. The New Rightists then demonized the state, andhence it followed that because the state is bad, the market must be good.Part of this process was to deny the existence of a third or communitysector. As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famouslyremarked, “There is no such thing as Society. There are individual menand women, and there are families.” This was a New Right shibbolethuntil the mid-1990s when “society” was rediscovered—along with “socialcapital.” For instance, the Australian New Right think tank, The Centrefor Independent Studies, declared in a 1990s issue of their newsletterPrecis, “there is such a thing as society,” as if this were something new.They have since published a collection of papers on social capital.5

However, the recognition of society, community, and social capital didnot mean that the New Right agenda had changed or had become sociallyresponsible. A new term entered the lexicon, but the basic direction of

THE POLITICAL USE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN NEW ZEALAND 147


policy remained the same. This involved attempts to ensnare the mean-ing of the term “social capital” in order to serve New Right ideology. InNew Zealand, Roger Kerr of the pro-business lobby group BusinessRoundtable also joined the chorus in praise of social capital. In a speechgiven in August 1996, he likened Robert Putnam’s theory of social capi-tal to David Green’s notion of “civil society.”6

In his book, From Welfare State to Civil Society (published by theBusiness Roundtable), Green suggests that rebuilding civil society willinvolve two steps. First, the government should withdraw from someactivities, presumably welfare. Second, champions of liberty shouldestablish voluntary associations for assisting the less fortunate and runthem in a spirit compatible with liberty.7 In a later speech, Kerr contin-ued the attack on the state and argued that trust in the marketplace is “aform of social capital.” He went on to say that “it is more easily erodedby the uncertainties generated by arbitrary government interventionthan by the operation of the market.”8

In viewing the government’s involvement in provision to the needy asa barrier to social capital, and arguing for more charity, I believe that theNew Right use of “social capital” is consistent with my definition. Theirline is that productive capital, such as state-owned power and telecom-munication companies, can be privatized to retire government debt andmake profits for private capitalists. Social capital, on the other hand, cansave taxes and hence preserve profits through the community takingover social welfare provision from government. Doing this on a largelyvoluntary or subsidized basis enables the government to reduce itsexpenditure and thereby permit tax cuts to be given to the wealthy. Theway Bolger’s Government used the term “social capital” in the late 1990swas similar to this. Let’s turn now to the Prime Minister’s speeches andthose of his Cabinet colleagues.

Prime Minister Bolger and Social Capital

The former Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, used the term “social capital” inno fewer than twelve major speeches. While he failed to define the termadequately, he used it in a way consistent with my definition. It is clearthat Bolger saw social capital as a means of saving taxpayers’ moneythrough further limiting the role of government. He stated, “it’s nowrecognised that Big Government didn’t work in the economic field andmy argument is that by itself it can’t deliver in the social field either, andthat we need a partnership between Government and the community tostart rebuilding the ‘social capital’ of the nation.”9



For Bolger, “social capital is not about the Government simply throw-ing money at society’s most stubborn problems.”10 In an abdication ofresponsibility for New Zealand’s social disorder he said, “social capital isabout the community successfully achieving progress towards solvingsociety’s ills.”11 Here the blame for society’s ills is either being avoided orplaced where the supposed solutions lie, with the community. Again wesee social capital being available to government to reduce its coststhrough removing activities from the state. But instead of these activitiesending up in the commercial sector, they are being pushed into the thirdor voluntary sector. Hence Bolger wanted to “tap into the energy of com-munity organizations.”12 Here social capital is not earning money, it issaving money for the government.

Ministerial Use of Social Capital

There were numerous other uses of “social capital” in speeches by otherministers in Bolger’s cabinet during 1997. In April, Christine Fletcher,then Minister of Women’s Affairs, spoke about service delivery coordi-nation for families at risk. She noted that “any Government desiringchange in this area must take the public with them, particularly women’sorganisations by demonstrating overwhelmingly that their motivation isa genuine attempt at improving the social capital of our country for fam-ilies rather than fiscally driven from a narrow welfare perspective.”13

In a May 1997 speech entitled “Focusing Government on What itDoes Best,” Simon Upton said:

The Prime Minister in recent speeches has made the point that power isflowing back to individuals and the intimate communities in which theygather; that there is a realisation that people managed to live together in acivil and peaceable way before the arrival of big government and centralplanning; and that its failure makes it important for us to rediscover howorganic communities reproduce themselves by maintaining “social capital.”

He made a call to ‘get the government out of people’s lives when thereis no need to be there and to be there when that is what a modern civilisedsociety would expect.’

It’s an important challenge and one that should make us think aboutthe entire reach of government.14

Another minister (and future leader of the National Party) Bill English,Minister of Health, in opening the Royal College of PsychiatristsConference in September 1997, claimed that he had been thinking about



what makes good health policy. The broad principles he came up withwere these:

The first thing is we want to organise our services and our funding aroundthe patient and the community. Secondly, we can greatly improve healthservices with no extra money by building better relationships between thecarers, and their clients. A third principle is that we’re looking for localsolutions to local problems. The fourth and final principle is that deci-sions about resources and clinical decisions should be made as close to theneed as possible. These four principles tie in well with the idea of socialcapital. They are about putting power back into the community, aboutdealing with needs as nearly as possible to where those needs are.Communities are built up, and grow creatively, when each individual isrespected and where relationships are nurtured.15

These three speeches show that social capital was being used as a meansto justify, and soften up the public for, further cuts in governmentspending. Fletcher says that we need more social capital and less welfare.English argues that more mental health services can be delivered withthe same or less money provided social capital is present. Upton argues,in typical New Right fashion, that we can cut back government, and as aresult taxes and social services, if we have enough social capital.

In the New Right era it was predictable that the uncritical acceptance ofsocial capital as a policy mechanism would mean the devolution ofunprofitable state functions to community groups. The thinking behindthis is that this devolution will save the Government money. Put simply:what the community does for free the state doesn’t have to pay for. Thiswas confirmed by government official Gerald Scanlan of the central gov-ernment agency The State Services Commission at a conference on socialcapital run by the Institute of Policy Studies in July 1997. Scanlan claimed:

The concept [of social capital] has been introduced into policy debate by thePrime Minister and other Ministers, who have made a connection betweensocial capital and the role of government in modern, democratic, capitalistsocieties. The concept provides a platform for making the cases for smaller,smarter and more collaborative government, whose role is more one ofenabling individuals, families, communities and local authorities to makethe best decisions about those aspects of life which are closest and mostimportant to them rather than one of making decisions for them.16

This focus on cost-effectiveness and lowering transaction costs of gov-ernment signals a direction toward smaller government and lower taxes



based on the transfer of ownership to the private sector and service pro-vision to the community sector.

Community Alternatives

The concept of “social capital” was used by the New Right to justify areorganization of society that will suit them. They believed that it wasbest for communities to run things rather than the state. Lest this articlebe read as an apologetic for big government I should state that I agreewith their basic notion—I do believe that it is better that communitiesrun things in their own interest rather than rely on the state, on termssimilar to subsidiarity. For example, few, if anyone, would suggest thatthe state run sports clubs. But communities doing more can only work,and should only take place, under certain circumstances.

The present roles of state, market, and non-governmental sectorsexist for historical reasons. If changes are to be made they must occurwith full community consultation and an appreciation of this history. Itcan be damaging for the government to opt out of services, forcing non-governmental organizations to pick up the pieces. If the community is totake on a greater role there must exist a strong sense of community, andthe community must not only be willing and able to take back tasks fromthe state, they must desire such a change and be prepared for it.

Despite their claims about the benefits of high levels of social capital,Bolger’s administration was accused time and time again by critics asdestroying communities and the very basis of social capital with its NewRight policies.17 Throughout the 1990s the decline of unions, increasinginequality, the decline of trust in elected representatives, and reductionsin social spending all acted against fostering community by pitting dif-ferent sectors of society against each other. The policies I mentionedbefore all contributed toward a breakdown in community in NewZealand. With increasing inequality, people have diverging, if not oppos-ing, interests. Those who can afford private education, health, and polic-ing regard paying taxes for the public provision of these services anunnecessary burden. This was a point not missed by the libertarian ACTpolitical party, which promised tax rebates for those who have privateeducation and health insurance.18

When the Labour Party returned to power in 1999 it had a differentfocus from both the more rightist National Party and the previous Labourgovernment. Like Tony Blair’s Third-Way Labour Party in the UnitedKingdom it promoted social democracy. Soon after being elected, Labourimplemented an assessment of the state of the government-voluntary sector



relationship through the Community and Voluntary Sector Working Party.Their report shed light on the reality behind the social capital rhetoric ofthe former National government. The report’s Executive Summary begins:

More than a decade of social and economic change and state sector reformhas left many in iwi [“tribal”] and community organisations mistrustfulof government and feeling undervalued and disempowered. Finding a wayto overcome this lingering negativity and proposing a way forward to arelationship based on mutual respect is the focus of this report.19

The report finds that the very organizations that the social capitalistswished to use for service provision were becoming increasingly strainedand resentful toward government. Community organizations were par-ticularly frustrated with the contracting model whereby governmentfunding for services was provided through competitive contracts withstrict reporting requirements and intrusive scrutiny. Their capacity tofulfill their own missions was being undermined at the same time thegovernment expected them to rebuild social capital and deliver socialand economic benefits to the New Zealand citizenry.

Social Capital Now

In twenty-first century New Zealand one rarely, if ever, hears the term“social capital.” It is no longer fashionable in New Zealand policy dis-course, with other terms and concepts, such as “social connectedness”and “social cohesion,” being more common now.20 As I have shown, themid-1990s saw a flurry of activity around the concept of social capital,usually in attempts by New Rightists to co-opt the term into their ownsocio-political agenda. While social capital is less popular now, thistrend has continued, with other groups and political parties using theterm for their own ends.

Interestingly the rhetoric has now changed. Whereas the right wingNational Party used social capital to justify funding and service cuts, theunions and the more left-leaning Labour Party are more willing to linksocial capital with economic growth. This features both using the futurereward of economic growth to justify focusing on social capital, andinvoking social capital in the pursuit of economic development.

From the left, social capital has been invoked by trade unions seekingbetter conditions for workers. In December 2002 Human RightsCommissioner Rosslyn Noonan cited Putnam and social capital in a



work-life balance campaign by the financial sector union Finsec, urgingthat this life balance was essential to the building of social capital.21

Without a balance between working and the rest of life workers will not beable to play a role in the voluntary sector and contribute toward the devel-opment of social capital. The implication is that workers will, once freedfrom onerous overtime, give back to the community and create enhancedconditions for wealth creation. The justification for the work/life balancewas based on, even in the words of the Human Rights Commissioner, oneconomic values, such as “labour productivity” and “economic andsocial development.”

The Labour Government, which defeated the National Party in theGeneral Election of 1999, has occasionally used the term “social capital,”but in ways different from its predecessor. Robert Putnam revisited NewZealand in 2003, attending the agenda-setting Knowledge WaveConference in Auckland. Minister of Social Development Steve Mahareyalso hosted him at Parliament in Wellington, perhaps in an attempt toreclaim the social capital concept for the Labour Party, following itsprominent use by the National Party. For Maharey, economic growthwas an important part of the focus on social capital, as his newsletterreported, “building greater levels of social capital is an integral elementin his [Maharey’s] social services and employment portfolio. The socialdevelopment approach adopted by the government recognises that socialinstitutions and networks are important elements in building not onlysocial cohesion but also sustainable economic growth.”22

Fellow Labour Minister Peter Hodgson also linked social capital witheconomic growth in a speech to The Social Policy Research andEvaluation Conference 2003, “Connecting Policy Research and Practice.”He praised Robert Putnam for highlighting “the importance of socialcapital for economic growth.” Hodgson also focused on the “increasinglycomplex ways this Government has seen growth. New ideas linked toinnovation, social capital and creativity are being woven into our ideasabout growth.”23

It seems ironic that Putnam and the concept of social capital is beingutilized by two opposing political parties. This does not show the abilityof social capital to transcend party political differences and bring abouta new political consensus. Rather it shows that the term is flexible andhas malleable meaning. But these developments are consistent with thedefinition I proposed at the outset. New Zealand remains a Westerndemocratic capitalist society. While Labour is committed to a moresocial democracy, the wealth generation capacity of social capitalremains central to its politics.



Conclusion

With social capital now being less fashionable it is timely to assess itspast use in New Zealand. In summary the New Zealand use of the term“social capital” shows how the term has been co-opted for pre-existingpolitical, social, and economic agendas, particularly during its heyday inthe mid- to late-1990s. Common amongst New Right activists and politi-cians was a desire to utilize social capital in order to justify their policiesand call for decreased government involvement in welfare. Social capitalsounded like a plausible alternative since it used the word “social” andsoftened the language of economic rationalism typically invoked for thereforms New Zealand went through. Social capital has been linked morelatterly with economic growth, partially to reassure corporate intereststhat Labour’s social democratic agenda is not solely socially focused butis pro-business and committed to economic growth. Overall, social cap-ital was treated primarily as an economic resource that governmentswished to use to save money or to promote economic growth, often pay-ing little attention to the community and voluntary sector, where socialcapital was supposed to grow.

Notes

1. D. Robinson (ed.), Social Capital and Policy Development (Wellington, N.Z.:Institute of Policy Studies, 1997), 1.

2. R. D. Putnam, “Social Capital” (1995), http://www.pcdf.org/1995/76putnam.htm (retrieved December 6, 2006); also see R. D. Putnam, R. Leonardi, andR. Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy(Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 152–57.

3. L. C. Thurow, “Investment in Human Capital,” Wadsworth Series in LaborEconomics and Industrial Relations (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co.,1970), 1.

4. T. A. Stewart, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations (NewYork: Currency/Doubleday, 1997).

5. This was published as A. Norton, M. Latham, G. Sturgess, and M. Stewart-Weeks, “Social Capital: The Individual, Civil Society, and the State,” PolicyForums 14 (St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Centre for Independent Studies, 1997).

6. R. Kerr, “The Road Back from Social Decay to Social Cohesion,” (1996),http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/speeches/speeches-96-97/soc-decay.doc.htm (retrieved December 6, 2006).

7. D. G. Green and New Zealand Business Roundtable, from Welfare State toCivil Society: Towards Welfare That Works in New Zealand (Wellington N.Z.:N.Z. Business Roundtable, 1996), 117.



8. R. Kerr, “What’s All This About Individualism?” (1997), http://www.nzbr.org.nz/documents/speeches/speeches-97/individualism.pdf (retrievedDecember 6, 2006).

9. J. Bolger, “Together Communities,” (1997), http://www.executive.govt.nz/speech.cfm?speechralph=12868&SR=1 (retrieved December 6, 2006).

10. J. Bolger, “The Millennium Agenda,” (1997), http://www.executive.govt.nz/speech.cfm?speechralph=12851&SR=1 (retrieved December 6, 2006).

11. Ibid.12. Ibid.13. C. Fletcher, “Celebrating the Past and Looking Forward,” (1997),

http://www.executive.govt.nz/speech.cfm?speechralph=12821&SR=1(retrieved December 6, 2006).

14. S. Upton, “Focusing Government on What It Does Best,” (1997),http://www.executive.govt.nz/speech.cfm?speechralph=13074&SR=1(retrieved December 6, 2006).

15. B. English, “Opening Address Royal College of Psychiatrists Conference,”(1997), http://www.executive.govt.nz/speech.cfm?speechralph=12541&SR=1 (retrieved December 6, 2006).

16. G. Scanlan, “The State Services Commission’s Interest in Social Capital,”Social Capital and Policy Development, David Robinson (ed.) (Wellington,N.Z.: Institute of Policy Studies, 1997), 160.

17. See, for example, J. Kelsey, The New Zealand Experiment: A World Model forStructural Adjustment? (Auckland N.Z.: Auckland University Press, BridgetWilliams Books, 1995).

18. Both education and healthcare is provided free by the state in New Zealand.19. Ministry of Social Policy, “Communities and Government—Potential for

Partnership Whakato-Pu-Whakaaro,” Ministry of Social Policy (ed.) (2001).Iwi is a Maori word for “tribe.” Many NGOs in Aotearoa New Zealand arerun by Iwi for their members.

20. Recent publications of the Ministry of Social Development will reveal thecurrent terms and concepts in vogue in New Zealand policy development.See http://www.msd.govt.nz/.

21. Finsec, “Finsec Launches Get a Life Campaign,” (2002), http://www.nzctu.org.nz/campaigns/getalife.html (retrieved December 6, 2006).

22. S. Maharey, Maharey Notes 83 (2003), http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewNewsletter.aspx?DocumentID=16116 (retrieved December 6, 2006).

23. P. Hodgson, “Connecting Policy Research and Practice,” (2003),http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/events/strategic-social-policy/conference-03/pete-hodgson.doc (retrieved December 6, 2006).




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Contributors

LISA GARCÍA BEDOLLA is associate professor of Political Science andChicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She isauthor of Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in LosAngeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). Her researchfocuses on the political incorporation of Latinos and other racial/eth-nic groups in the United States, with an emphasis on the intersection ofrace, class, and gender.

RICHARD DAVIS was the first executive officer of the ecumenicalChurches’ Agency on Social Issues in New Zealand. He has sinceworked for the New Zealand public service in the Office for theCommunity and Voluntary Sector. Richard has graduate degrees inboth political philosophy and theology.

JAMES JENNINGS is professor of Urban and Environmental Policy andPlanning at Tufts University. He has published widely in the areas ofrace and urban affairs. His latest books include Welfare Reform and theRevitalization of Inner City Neighborhoods (MSU Press), and a co-edited volume, New Introduction to Poverty: Race, Power, and Wealth(NYU Press). He was guest editor for the issue “Race, Politics, andCommunity Development in U.S. Cities” for The Annals, Journal of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Sciences (July 2004).

JESSICA KULYNYCH is a political theorist and independent scholar. Shehas published articles on the impact of postmodern and feminist the-ory on contemporary understandings of political participation andpublic deliberation. She is also working on a book-length projectexploring the incorporation of children’s voices into the democraticpublic sphere.

DANIEL MONTI is professor of Sociology at Boston University. Theauthor of five books and dozens of published papers on urban and eth-nic affairs and American civic life, Monti is writing a book about the

pal-jennings-ch10contributors.qxp 3/29/2007 11:36 AM Page 171

practice of civic capitalism and a novel about a killing that occurred inBoston’s fabled North End. He also created InnerCity Entrepreneurs, anonprofit organization that provides technical assistance to businessesthat are prepared to grow and become more effective economic players.

KAREN BRIDGET MURRAY is assistant professor of Political Science atYork University (Toronto, Canada). Her research draws upon contempo-rary social theory to assess governmental realignment from street-levelvantage points in Boston, Dublin, and Vancouver. A major emphasis inthis work concerns the growing centrality of voluntary organizations indealing with issues of poverty and disadvantage. Her recent work hasappeared in The Canadian Historical Review, Canadian Journal of UrbanResearch, and Canadian Public Administration.

LINDA SILKA is University of Massachusetts Lowell Special Assistant tothe Provost for Community Outreach and Partnerships. She directs theCenter for Family, Work, and Community and is a professor in theDepartment of Regional Economic and Social Development. She isauthor of the book Intuitive Judgments of Change (Springer Verlag) andeditor or co-editor of three new books: Citizens as Planners (UMassPress, in press), with E. Hamin and P. Geigis, Education for Sustainability(Baywood, 2006), with R. Forrant, and Scholarship in Action: AppliedResearch and Community Change (HUD, in press).

STEPHEN SAMUEL SMITH is professor of Political Science at WinthropUniversity and frequently writes about urban politics and school deseg-regation. He is the author of Boom for Whom? Education, Desegregation,and Development in Charlotte and served as an expert witness for theNAACP’s Legal Defense Fund in the reopened Swann (bussing fordesegregation) litigation. He is currently doing a comparative study ofanti-war movements in U.S. history.

DAVID TURCOTTE is a Project Director at the University of MassachusettsLowell’s Center for Family, Work, and Community. He has more thantwenty years of nonprofit and community development experience.Earlier, he managed the UMass Lowell CIRCLE (Center for Immigrantand Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment) Program thatprovided technical assistance and capacity-building training to leaders ofthe minority and immigrant community. He is an adjunct faculty mem-ber of the University of Massachusetts Lowell Department of RegionalEconomic and Social Development and recently completed his doctoraldissertation, “A Framework for Sustainable Housing Development in theUnited States” (University of Massachusetts Lowell, 2006).

172 CONTRIBUTORS


RUSSELL E. WILLIAMS is assistant professor in the Department ofEconomics at Wheaton College (MA). Prior to joining the Wheaton fac-ulty he had an extensive career in public policy-related research insti-tutes. He has designed and implemented evaluation projects for the U.S.federal government in the areas of housing and small business develop-ment. His chapter is adapted from his doctoral dissertation “SocialNetworks and Labor Market Outcomes, Theoretical Expansions andEconometric Analysis” (University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2005).

CONTRIBUTORS 173



AABA, see Asian American BusinessAssociation

Adams, John, 35–6Africville, 133, 135–8, 140–2Alinsky, Saul, 57, 61American Economic Association, 76American Political Science

Association, 50, 87American Sociological Association,

48, 63apathy, 7, 93–4, 112Arnott, Richard, 74–6ascriptive terms, 10Asian American Business

Association (AABA), 121, 122–124Asian American business owners,

121–5Asian American communities, 5, 73,

96, 114–29associational density, 94Australia, 147

Black communities, 3–4, 5, 9–10,15–16, 70, 73–5, 91–3, 96–8, 100,112, 135–41; middle class, 91, 98;and social capital, 9, 100, 136, 138;stereotypes of, 93–4, 97, 100. SeeAfricville; Gottigen district

Blair, Tony, 151bohemian communities, 23–4, 28, 29Bolger, Jim, 145, 148, 149, 151Bolshevik Revolution, 51Boston, 23, 25, 28–30, 75, 91, 96,

98–9, 101, 129, 135“bounded solidarity,” 116Bourdieu, Pierre, 45–7, 65, 88

Bourdieuconomics, 88Bowling Alone, 7, 41, 47, 54, 57, 61

Cabrini Green neighborhood, 97Cambodian American communities,

114–20, 122–4, 129Cambodian Mutual Assistance

Association (CMAA), 114–15, 117,120

“Campbell Road,” see AfricvilleCanada, 133–42capitalism, 42–6, 48, 50–9, 61–3,

146–8, 153; character of, 56, 58–9Center for Family, Work, and

Community (CFWC), 110, 115, 117CFWC, see Center for Family, Work,

and Communitychambers of commerce, 121Chicago, 97China, 26, 50city life, 22, 31 civic engagement, 7–9, 13–17, 42,

47, 51, 63, 89, 94, 99, 103–4, 111,112, 133–5, 138, 141; and capital,51; context and community in,13–16; as social capital, 42; statusof, 2, 7–8, 12, 21–2, 25, 30–1, 35,37–8, 47; structural factors, 15–17

civil rights movement (1960s), 9, 11,14, 26–7

“civil society,” 133, 134, 140, 148civil society organizations, 133–134CMAA, see Cambodian Mutual

Assistance AssociationColeman, James S., 46–7, 49, 53, 60,

62, 65, 78

Index

pal-jennings-ch11index.qxp 3/29/2007 11:37 AM Page 175

collective activity, 12–14Communist Manifesto, 51competition, 43, 56, 58–9consumer-citizens, 52Cortes, Ernesto, 57–9, 61–2“creative class,” 3, 4, 23–30“creative economy,” 23–5cultural capital, 45–6, 48

democracy, 2, 5, 11, 22, 26, 35, 39, 42,47, 49–51, 54–5, 58, 60, 63, 93–4,100, 134–5, 140, 142; and capital,51; civic habits, 22, 26, 39; eco-nomic theory, 49; social capital,134–5, 140, 142; urban democracy,93–4. See also social capital (theterm): democracy

Democracy in America, 35, 135Denmark, 88desegregation, 9, 95Dewey, John, 45diversity, 15, 28, 29, 113, 115, 141dominant ideology thesis, 61–2Dorchester, Massachusetts, 91Douglas, Roger, 145

economic capital, 45–6, 63economic development, 1–2, 67–8,

71, 79, 88, 102, 110–30; alternativeapproach, 126–8; community,111–14, 121–30; corporate centerapproach, 126–8; engines of,114–19; international, 68, 71; local,1–2, 68, 71, 88; pro-growth logic of,102; social capital in, 67–8

economic imperialism, 44, 49–50, 53,58

environmental racism, 143, 164Europe, 21, 26, 54, 145, 147, 151

Federal Housing Authority (FHA), 10FHA, see Federal Housing Authorityfinancial capital, 42, 53–54, 58, 63, 70,

88, 113, 146

Finland, 88Fletcher, Christine, 149–50Florida, USA, 91Florida, Richard, 22–5, 27–33, 35–6,

112–13Ford, Henry, 11French Revolution, 47

gatekeepers, 14, 16–17, 93gay communities, 23–4gentrification, 96, 103, 139“global associational revolution,” 146globalization, 51, 113, 133the “good ole days,” 4Gottingen district, 133–5, 138–42Green, David, 148Greeks, 29, 31

Halifax, Nova Scotia, 5, 133–42. SeeAfricville; Gottingen district

Hanifan, Lyda J., 45, 51, 65Hitler, Adolf, 11housing discrimination, 10, 73, 75human capital, 46, 48, 67, 70–1, 76–7,

79, 88, 146human capital theory, 67, 71, 76–7,

79. See “opportunity structures”Hun, Sen, 119–20

immigrant communities, 5, 101, 109,113-116, 118, 120, 127, 129

import substitution, 117individualism, 35, 43, 56, 58–9, 63Industrial Areas Foundation, 4, 57–9,

61Industrial Workers of the World

(IWW), 57industrialization, 21, 26intellectual capital, 146Italy, 7, 47, 145IWW, see Industrial Workers of the

World

Japan, 26, 104

176 INDEX


Kerr, Roger, 148keywords, 44Khmer Rouge, 122

labor market discrimination, 74labor market theory, 67–9, 71–83. See

search theoryLabour Party, 6, 145–6, 151–4laissez-faire racism, 19, 158Lange, David, 145language, 2, 4, 43–4, 49, 52–63,

112–13; defines social reality, 44, 53;stock market, 52–5, 58; welfare, 59

Laotian community, 120Las Vegas, 28Latino communities, 4, 10, 16–17, 70,

73, 93–6, 98–100, 103, 113Lawrence, Massachusetts, 95, 99, 100,

101, 113liberty, 35, 39, 148“linked fate,” 13–14low-income communities (U.S.), 1–6,

54, 87–104Lowell, Massachusetts, 114–28, 129Lowell Plan, 124, 127–8Lowell Small Business Assistance

Center, 124–5Lowi, Theodore, 50, 52

Maharey, Steve, 153Making Democracy Work, 7, 47, 52,

57, 93, 134Marcuse, Herbert, 42, 56, 60Marshall, Alfred, 45Marx, Karl, 45, 50–1Marxism, 50–1McCullough, David, 35McNally, David, 43–4McVeigh, Timothy, 41, 56Menchaca, Martha, 14Merrimack Valley, 114, 116–17,

121–2, 125, 129middle class, 3, 9, 10–11, 88, 91,

97–102. See “creative class”

Milligan, Melinda, 22Minneapolis, 96Mitchell, Clyde J., 71, 80–2the multiplier effect, 116–17, 131

National Party government, 145, 147,149, 152–3

neo-classical architecture, 102–3neo-classical economics, 44, 54New Right, 6, 11, 145–54New York City, 103New Zealand, 5–6, 145–54

Ohio, 15“opportunity structures,” 77–8

Personal Responsibility and WorkReconciliation Act of 1996, 95

physical capital, 46, 70, 88Portes, Alejandro, 48–9, 63, 68, 89,

101, 113–14post-World War II generation, 7,

11–12, 17poverty, 1–4, 8, 15–16, 59, 88–90, 96,

98–9, 106, 112, 134, 138power, 2, 4, 45–6, 48Progressive movement, 51public policy, 1, 3–6, 44, 50, 52, 69,

71, 78, 81, 87, 90, 95–102, 134,138–42; and bureaucracy, 44, 50, 52;civic participation, 1, 95–7; racism.See Africville; Gottingen district

Putnam, Robert D., 4, 7–14, 16–18,21–3, 25–7, 30–6, 38, 41–3, 47–9,52–3, 56–7, 60–2, 65, 67, 88–9, 92,112–13, 134–5, 145–6, 148, 152–3;criticisms of, 7–9, 11–14, 17, 22–3,25–7, 30–4, 41–3, 49, 52, 56–7, 61–2;on public policy, 134–5; self-criti-cisms, 41; status of social capital, 7,9–12, 17–18, 21, 25–6, 30–2, 35. Seealso civic engagement; race; socialcapitalists; working-class solidarity

INDEX 177


race, 1, 8–9, 10–14, 17–18, 70, 73, 87,90–5, 112, 133–42; de-racializationof social capital, 91–5, 112; andpublic policy in Halifax, 133–42

racial inequality, 2, 5, 87, 90–2, 97,102–4

racism, 2, 87, 114refugee communities, 109–10, 113,

114, 116, 117, 121, 126, 128, 129, 135reservation wages, 71–2Robert Taylor Homes, 97Roxbury, Massachusetts, 98–9, 101Royal Party, 119

Salamon, Lester B., 133Sam Raimsy Party, 119–20San Francisco, 23, 28–9Santiago and Jennings, 99, 107, 113,

131, 167Scanlan, Gerald, 150Schlesinger, Arthur M., 39search theory, 67, 71–2self-help initiatives, 21, 92, 112self-interest, 53–4segregation, 5, 10–11, 14Skocpol, Theda, 21Smith, Adam, 54“social apartness,” 14social capacity, 44, 63social capital: bonding, 41, 56, 60, 89;

bridging, 41, 60, 89; consumer-citi-zens, 52; corporate agendas, 3–6,54, 101–4, 112; democracy, 134–5,140, 142; economics, 4, 48–50, 54,88–90, 110; a glue, 1–4, 92–3; andgovernment, 97, 103, 145–54; het-erogeneity, 15; and leadership, 89;and social networks, 68–71, 80;“stock” of, 1, 11, 53–4, 60, 91. Seecivic engagement; context; race;social capital (the term); social rela-tions; voluntary sector; a “wonderdrug,” 90, 97

social capital, (the term), 4, 42–63,68–9, 78–83, 87, 90, 109, 111–12,

146–7, 153; and democracy, 42,49–50, 54–5, 58; historical contextof, 42–4, 50–1, 61–3; impedesunderstanding, 4, 42–3, 48–9, 54,60, 62–3, 90; a keyword, 44, 62;meanings of, 4, 8, 45–9, 68–9, 85,87, 90, 109, 111–12, 146, 153; inpolitics, 52–5, 60–2; and poor peo-ple, 58–60; popularity of, 44, 49–51;and power, 46, 48; and social net-works, 78–9. See capitalism; socialcapacity; working-class solidarity

social capitalists, 41, 43, 54, 61–2, 152social connectedness, 14social context, 70–4, 80, 90–1social networks, 4, 10, 14, 67–71,

75–84, 89, 91, 111; characteristicsof, 81–3; homogenous, 10, 14; andlabor markets, 67, 70–1

social order, 42, 103social reality, 44, 48, 53social relations, 8–9, 13–14, 18, 42–3,

46, 57, 80, 117social sciences, 48–9, 67, 69–70, 78, 90“society,” 147solidarity, see working-class solidaritySoviet Union, 50spatial effects, 74spatial inequality, 1–2, 5, 87, 90, 97,

101–4spatial mismatch hypotheses, 67,

71–6Stewart, Thomas, 146structural inequality, 4, 6, 90, 112Swack, Michael, 125

Thatcher, Margaret, 147Tocqueville, Alexis de, 26, 35–6, 38–9,

135, 142Tonnies, Ferdinand, 35tourism, 126–9transnationalism, 110, 117–21, 129;

economic, 117–19; political, 119–21

178 INDEX


trust, 2, 7, 17, 26, 30, 32, 51, 56, 60,68, 69, 83, 86–9, 92, 99–101, 148,151–2; and capital, 51

UAA, see Urban Affairs Associationunemployment, 4, 72, 95Uniacke Square, 138United Nations, 120, 137United States: and “associations,” 26,

38–9; civic identity and race, 2, 4,10–17. See capitalism

University of Massachusetts Lowell,10, 114–15, 117

Urban Affairs Association (UAA),52–4, 87

urban communities, 3–4, 6, 70, 88

voluntary sector, 133–4, 139–40,148–53

volunteering, 21, 32–3

Wacquant, Loic J. D., 2–3“weak links,” 69welfare, 3, 6, 59, 77, 91, 95–6, 139,

145, 147–9, 150, 154Welfare State to Civil Society, 148White communities, 2, 5, 9–12,

15–17, 70, 73, 91–2White flight, 9, 138working-class solidarity, 43, 48, 51,

56–7, 60, 62–3, 93–4Wuthnow, Robert, 22

Young, Iris, 61

INDEX 179


Documents

Race, Neighborhoods, and the Misuse of Social Capital