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Social capital

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Introduction

Social capital refers to the relationships, institutions, and norms that shape the quantity and

quality of a society’s social interactions. For sustainable development and economic

prosperity, social cohesion is vital according to the increasing evidence. Social capital is the

glue that holds institutions together, and it is also the sum of the institutions that largely

underpin the society. From another perspective, social capital can be said to be a form of

cultural and economic capital in which social networks are the center, transactions marked by

trust, cooperation, reciprocity, and market agents provide goods for the common good rather

than for themselves. According to Hanifan, social capital is those tangible assets that largely

count for most in the daily lives of people: namely fellowship, goodwill, social intercourse

and sympathy among the individuals and families who make up a social unit. Therefore,

social capital refers to the links, understandings in the society as well as the shared values

that enable the individuals and groups to trust each other and thus work together. (Halpern,

11).
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Social capital is simply more than having social networks and connections. It is shown in

individuals who have a well-developed sense of mutual relationship and trust, and normally

the concept of reciprocity is upheld through a give and take relationship ion their social

relationship. Social capital is largely displayed by individuals who are vigorously betrothed

in political and civic life. This reciprocity, trust, and political and civic engagement then

augments the communities where these individuals live (Halpern, 33). Therefore, social

capital is a social and an essential community asset based on four tools: reciprocity, trust,

collective action and networks. Social capital normally takes a time to develop, and it largely

requires a concrete attention that must be specific.

Social capital, in particular, has become the running theoretical construct for all those on the

lookout for designing public policies that will steer a path between a welfare state and the

free-marketeers. The basic attraction of the social capital model is that it permits the non-

mercantile resources in a community to be pickled within a quasi-market framework,

whereby assets can be subjected to various forms of social accountancy. Such assets are

networks of trust, social support, and expertise (Halpern, 19).

Many scholars have suggested that social capital works out mainly because it is an

investment in social relations with anticipated returns. It is a commonly believed among

many people that individuals engage in interactions and intensive networking in a bid to

produce profits. The concept of social capital attempts to capture the influence of some

intangible resources linked to the sociality of individuals (Hanifan,30). On the same concept,

according to Bourdieu, social capital refers to the potential or actual resources that are

directly connected to possession of a lasting network of more or less institutionalized

relationships of recognition and mutual acquaintance to membership in a group

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(Bourdieu,10). Social capital reflects an enduring cultural practice that can hardly be

explained regarding rational values. The practices and the norms form the key exogenous

factors in creating the governmental and economic performance. Therefore, social capital is

practiced as a matter of a rational habit, and it has its roots in what can be termed as irrational

phenomena like traditional ethics and religion. It would appear to be necessary to allow the

proper functioning of plausible modern economic and political institutions. (Halpern, 12).

Several economists have argued that social capital is an imperative determinant of the

functioning and economic development of institutions. It is a common belief that social

capital can induce efficient political and economic outcomes (Halpern,112). The

rudimentary idea is that supporters who share cultural qualities based on solidarity and

respect for others are more likely to ask questions from their politicians and hold them

accountable to high standards of behavior, and in most cases they become less sympathetic of

moral hazard in their elected representatives. By referring to social capital as civic capital, we

refer to those shared values and beliefs and that are in most cases persistent with the bearers,

and that help people or a group of individuals to overcome the free rider challenge in the hunt

of socially valuable activities. We put this notion in the context of political accountability,

where we combine two types of voters, uncivil and civil voters. The two voters vote

retrospectively, but while the uncivil citizens cast their votes based on individual or group

specific welfare, the civil citizens in many instances will condition their vote on the aggregate

welfare. The civil citizen’s votes reduce the amount of endogenous rents grabbed by the

elected incumbent politicians. The chief reason behind this phenomenon is that the uncivil

citizens allow the incumbent politician to espouse a divide and rule strategy. Divide and rule

strategy, in equilibrium, reduces the electoral punishment for misbehaviors. While this is the

case, civic voters naturally chastise a lazy or a corrupt politician even in cases where the

politicians meet targeted clientelistic benefits. The uncivil citizens, unfortunately, will go
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ahead and reward the benefits regardless from their sources, for instance, uncivil voters will

reward benefits from corrupt and lazy politicians. Where groups lack cooperation, corrupt

politicians will go unpunished as punishing them is viewed as an incompatible incentive for

civil citizens. Social capital is consequently seen as a tool to ensure unspoken cooperation

between voters. Intrinsically, the larger the set of voters who do not cooperate, the larger the

equilibrium rents grabbed by the incumbent politicians.

To empirically test these inferences, we examine data on the behavior of Italian voters and

political legislatures in the post-war period. I choose Italy as it is characterized by large

differences in social capital and other related cultural traits, which can be drawn back to

distant local political history. I attempt to compare the average behavior of the representatives

and the voters in different electoral districts. My central pointer of social capital is the

average per capita blood donations in the Italian provinces, although the outcomes are robust

to alternative measures. I rely on two pointers of misbehavior of incumbents in national

elections: the first one is represented by the prosecutor’s requests to go on with a criminal

investigation leveled against a member of parliament, and the second is the rate of

absenteeism in the electronic votes by members of parliament over the previous legislative

term.

Conferring to both absences in parliament and criminal prosecutions, misbehavior by the

inescapable is more recurrent in electoral districts with lesser social capital. Furthermore, an

electoral punishment of the incumbent’s misconduct is stronger and tighter among the

districts with more social capital. The social capital theory suggests civil citizens prefer the

provision of not clientelistic benefit but rather public goods.

To investigate the above notion empirically, I relied on an indirect proxy for particularistic, as

opposed to legislative activities, general-interest, which are the number of proposed bills

aimed to a specific entity. The results here are less robust, albeit the data shows a negative
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correlation between social capital and the amount of particularistic activities instigated by

elected officials.

Empirical research data shows that electorates punish corrupt politicians but widely,

corruption charges signify only one of the many factors concerning voters. In the United

States, it was noted that corruption charges rarely made politicians to retire, resign, or lose in

their primaries though they significantly contribute in politician’s losing of votes and at times

elections.

The whole society at large bears a high social and financial cost due to crime and other anti-

social behavior. These costs are incurred by society when laying down the regulatory

framework to combat crime, providing justice infrastructures, fixing the criminal damage,

dealing with offenders and supporting victims. When the rates of crime rise, the social

resources such as community confidence, trust, and freedom and an overall climate of fear

may overwhelm the spirit of cooperation and participation in community life.

Crime is an inherent indicator of societal dysfunction, the same way safety in a community is

perceived to be a vibrant and important factor underpinning healthy and communities. Lower

levels of crime are enjoyed where the communities have inherently shared norms and values,

and also where good informal social networks work out in neighborhoods. Moreover, a

perception of safety in the community is imperative to motivate people to feel confident in

participating in activities in their communities such as recreational activities, sports activities,

and even cultural activities.

Social networks may have help to intercede in a community, the relationship between crime

and poverty. Social networks will be a success where social institutions that include the

family, schools, religious community and sports club interact cohesively with each other.

There is evidence that shows a great connection between social capital and safer

neighborhoods and lower rates of crime. For instance, in the United States, the states with
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strong and high social capital registers lower levels of crime rates of homicide. There also

exists a strong, coherent link between social distrust, violent crime, and social inequality.

Trust and social ties are undermined, and the resultant effects are quite undesirable in

particular with regards to social crime, and these results as a result of social exclusion and

poverty undermining dignity, self-esteem, and social status.

Social capital and health.

For an individual and community as a whole to thrive well, sound health and well-being are

dear. Good health is imperative as long as individuals are expected to participate in the

community activities. Communities have great interests in their member’s health. A

community’s sense of optimism is boosted by the good health outcomes, and it can also be

damaged where there is widespread poor health within the community. The community and

individuals alike incur high costs due to the burden of disease (H, Ray-May, Nan Lin,

Routledge,48).

Human capital and health are correlated positively. Recent researchers have concluded that

there is a strong link between lower morbidity social capital. Essentially, those with higher

levels of social interaction and participation are most likely to have a better health and lower

risk of premature morbidity. Stakeholders and policy formulators in health departments are

interested in utilizing social capital data to assist in decision-making with regards to the

planning and implementation of health services, resource allocation with regards to the

effectiveness of health care interventions, group volunteer programs, health interest support

groups, the resourcing of community groups. And in program evaluation.

Also, the stakeholders are interested in extending and promoting the role of the community in

health service planning, and community groups in having an active role in preventative health

promotion, health measures and in influencing health behaviors and practices. Data of

relating to social capital issues such as suicide, drug use, mental illness, and premature death
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rates will assist to most effectively target services, education and public awareness creation

programs and strategies (H, Ray-May, Nan Lin, Routledge, 64).

In the past two or three decades, social capital in its various contexts and forms has emerged

as a major and salient concept in social sciences. There are divergent views, expectations and

perspectives that have raised serious questions such as: is social capital a fad or does it have

lasting qualities that will sign a new intellectual enterprise? To answer such an intriguing

question, it is only important to understand that social capital is an embedded resource in

social networks (Lin, Nan, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 9). Deviances from this

understanding in conceptualization and measurement lead to unfathomable confusion in

analyzing causal mechanisms in the micro and macro processes. The new form of social

capital that has emerged in the recent past is what I would term as the cyber network; social

networks in cyberspace (Lin, Nan, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 13). In the year 1997 alone,

the citizens of the United States bought more computers than the automobiles bought across

the continent. E-commerce has become an enormous and growing business. Many people buy

gifts and other commodities online including booking for holiday trips and vocational trips

online (Lin, Nan, Cambridge: Cambridge UP,17). With the ever rising availability of less

expensive personal computers and ever increasing web capabilities that go beyond space and

time, we are encountering a new error of social networks in the form of global villages (H,

Ray-May, Nan Lin, Routledge,78). Globalization has ceased to be a necessity in a

reproduction of the main peripheral world systems where the core states launch links and

networks to the peripheral states for their continuing domination of information, surplus

values and resources. Instead, information has become freer and easily available to a lot more

individuals than it was before in the history of humanity. It is notably true that in the current

world dominant states and actors have perpetually remained actively interested in the

directing the development of cyberspace. However, it is undeniable and obvious that cyber
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networks represent a new era of democratic and entrepreneurial networks and associations

where resources flow and are shared and divided among a larger number of participants with

new practices and governing rules, majority of which are lacking colonial capability or intent

(Lin, Nan, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 7)

With the rising and increasing development of technology and the ever presence of

commercial interests, there has been a fuse in the socio-economic, technological elements

brought about by the cyber networks of social relations and social capital as well ( G.

Christiaan, 22 ).This emerging characteristic of mixed social capital and economic capital

raises new queries with relations to the access and use of social capital. Technology has

undeniably made it quite possible and easy to actualize the virtual reality and to go beyond

space and time such that hatred and murder, as well as passion and love, are being realized

and personalized (H, Ray-May, Nan Lin, Routledge, 84).

Social capital can be increased and stretched beyond its scope through such actions as the

legitimization of alternatives, enhancing diverse networks, resource mobilization among

other ways. Some communities have the specific way of doing their things, and they strictly

stick to this ways. Others go beyond only specific ways, and they consider alternative ways

of doing things that are more legitimate. In such communities, there are shared goals and

anticipations with an understanding that there are so many ways of reaching and attaining

their goals. ( G. Christiaan,116 ).

Moreover, communities with high social capital have inclusive and diverse networks.

Communities require rooms for diversity such as diversity of income levels, populations,

access to power and buildings, nonetheless, there is room for subgroups with high levels of

social capital. Identifying the necessary viewpoint that will assist in forward movement and

attainment of the goals would be the best approach to diversity. With this, when the

community development project wants to create more jobs, people, mostly insider people
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who will opt to take those jobs will be part of the process hence there will be a better

connection between the manufactured capital and the human capital offered the employment

opportunities( G. Christiaan,110 ).It is a common belief that communities will best learn from

each other. Therefore, social capital is built within the communities and among them. It is

imperative that communities be connected to national, state and regional resources and

organizations. It is also vital that elected incumbents attend the regional, national and state

meetings to allow creations of new partnerships and collaborations. Collaborations and

partnerships enlarge the interests of the community. Flexible and permeable networks are

vital for community sustainability (F, John,19). Social capital should be flexible enough to

allow the interests of the community be realized by forming partnerships and collaborations,

and when it comes to very localized interests, the social capital boundaries should be reduced

to allow it.

There should be equity in the communities, and particularly availability of resources should

be made available to all (F, John, 24). This applies to not only public resources but also to

private resources such as credit. Public resources include recreation, health, quality education

and other opportunities. Should there be existing criteria and laid down procedures for access

to resources, it must be widely known to all and the opportunities to allow people access the

opportunities must exist. In a community, there are different levels of citizenry and

entrepreneurs, and, therefore, this calls for concerted efforts by the banks to determine how to

give loans to individuals. The ability to mobilize private resources is a crucial and important

part of creating social capital as it gives everyone a chance to give. Mobilization of public

resources calls for the inherent willingness for the people to invest in themselves in a bid to

making their lives a lot better (F, John, 12).

In conclusion, therefore, it is easy to see that social capital has many benefits that include,

preservation of social norms and discouraging selfish behaviors, enhancing better lives by the
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creation of quality schools, and better health services and largely social equity which are

brought about by providing equal opportunities to all. From the political scenario discussed

herein, we can clearly see that social capital indeed matters a lot as it helps the community to

hold their political incumbents accountable and punish them for the laziness, corruption and

other wrongs that they do while in power and as well reward those who bring a common

good to the people. Therefore, it is imperative to conclude by asserting that indeed social

capital matters and the community destroys it when they neglect it and permit uncivilized

wrongs in the community.

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Works Cited

Dasgupta, Partha, and Ismail Serageldin. Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective.

Washington: World Bank, 2010. Print.

Field, John. Social Capital. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.

Grootaert, Christiaan, and Bastelaer T. Van. The Role of Social Capital in Development: An

Empirical Assessment. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.

Halpern, David. Social Capital. Cambridge: Polity, 2005. Print.

Hsung, Ray-May, Nan Lin, and Ronald L. Breiger. Contexts of Social Capital: Social

Networks in Markets, Communities, and Families. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Huysman, Marleen, and Volker Wulf. Social Capital and Information Technology.

Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012. Print.

Lin, Nan. Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. Cambridge: Cambridge

UP, 2011. Print.