Social Capital: Usefulness of the Concept

The vast amount of theoretical and empirical work on social capital that has inundated the social sciences, since the beginning of the nineties, can be roughly divided in to two categories. Firstly there are those writers, mainly political scientists and economists, who follow Putnam's line of reasoning and tend to see "associational membership" more as a source of social capital than as another form of it. Secondly those, mainly sociologists, who tend to treat the concept of social capital as primarily a social structural variable, which can be used to refer to social network or to the linkages between individuals and/or organizations. The later theorists, represented by writers such as Edwards and Foley (2001b), and Lin (2001a, 2001b), usually associate social capital with facilitating goods and service flows among individuals and organization. Through a historical overview, discussion on the major conceptualizations, as well as special characteristics and perspectives of social capital, we try to clarify the social capital debate and clearly differentiate between the two approaches. Subsequently, we present a thorough critique of Putnam's approach to social capital, as well as various arguments questioning its conceptualization and use. As a result, we argue that this line of argument leads to a dead..