Workshop 8 – The Changing Structure of Civil Society Social Capital and Civil Society – Exploring a Complex Relationship

Understandings of the relationship between social capital and civil society depend on which traditions of research scholars take as their point of reference. This paper identifies three such general families: social capital as accessed resources, as cognitive resources, or as networks and the norms embedded in them. It is argued that the latter perspective is the most promising approach in so far as it enables the exploration of the roots and conditions for collective action at a variety of levels, whilst at the same time avoiding some of the normative assumptions that have drawn criticism to the social capital approach. Finally this paper suggests that such an understanding of social capital is compatible with recent theoretical advances in the field of social movement theory and theory of associations, which can be seen as two of the forms of collective action which social capital can facilitate. 1Introduction This paper must carry a warning right at the start: it is not intended as the presentation of a finished and polished understanding of social capital in relation to civil society. Rathe