Environment, society &

development
Impact of development & social capital on the environment
By Lec Farheen Akter Bhuian
What Is Social Capital?
 The term social capital refers to a positive product of human interaction. The positive
outcome may be tangible or intangible and may include favors, useful information,
innovative ideas, and future opportunities.

 Social capital is not held by an individual, but instead appears in the potential between
social network connections between individuals.

 Social capital is a set of shared values or resources that allows individuals to work
together in a group to effectively achieve a common purpose.

 Social capital can also be thought of as the potential ability to obtain resources, favors,
or information from one's personal connections.
Types of Social Capital

Bonding
Capital

Bridging
Capital

Linking
Capital
Continued…
 Bonding refers to social capital created within a group with shared interests and goals. A
neighborhood association is a good example of how bonding works.

 Bridging, on the other hand, is creating social capital across groups. When bridging is
successful, individuals in the two groups discover shared interests and goals and work
together to achieve them. A neighborhood association that links up with a local police
department is an example of how bridging works.

 Linking, similar to bridging, linking creates ties across groups, but those that span
different socioeconomic groups. Linking has been associated with increasing one's
chances of upward social mobility.
Is there any relationship between social capital, environment, and development?

 Social capital is a catchall term for the social institutions and networks at a household, local, and national
level that influence how people interact and how these interactions influence social and economic
outcomes.

 Increasingly, policymakers view social capital as an asset that can be enlarged and used to address various
social ills, including poor educational achievements, crime, morbidity, and environmental degradation, and
also improve economic outcomes.

 In terms of the environment, the common presumption is that social capital, by fostering collective action
at the local and national levels, is unambiguously good for the environment.

 Evidence for this widely held view comes from case studies of collective action to address a wide range of
local resource and environmental problems in various countries.
Continued….
 Social capital is a catchall term for the social institutions and networks at a household, local, and national
level that influence how people interact and how these interactions influence social and economic
outcomes.

 Increasingly, policymakers view social capital as an asset that can be enlarged and used to address various
social ills, including poor educational achievements, crime, morbidity, and environmental degradation, and
also improve economic outcomes.

 In terms of the environment, the common presumption is that social capital, by fostering collective action
at the local and national levels, is unambiguously good for the environment.

 Evidence for this widely held view comes from case studies of collective action to address a wide range of
local resource and environmental problems in various countries.

 In this lecture, we will discuss the effects of social capital, variously defined, on broad national measures of
environmental quality.
Continued…

 The discussion takes the first step toward answering three critical questions regarding the
relationship between social determinants and national environmental performance.

1. To what extent do broad-based and national civic, social capital (measured by trust, civic
engagement, and active membership in voluntary organizations) and public social capital
(measured by democratic accountability and corruption) affect national environmental
performance?

2. Are social barriers to communication across social groups (measured by ethnolinguistic

fractionalization (ELF), land inequality, and religious homogeneity), defined as social
divergence, significant factors in determining environmental performance across countries?

3. Are measures of the ability of individuals to achieve their human potential (calorie intake
as a percentage of total requirements and average years of schooling), defined as social
capacity, necessary in influencing overall environmental outcomes at a national level?
Social Determinants and Environmental Outcomes
 Barrett and Graddy (2000) empirically supported that civil and political liberties improve environmental
quality.
 Torras and Boyce (1998) examined whether unequal power distributions, as measured by income
inequality, literacy, and civil and political liberties, affect environmental degradation, and they concluded
that widening the distribution of power within society can positively affect environmental quality.

 Neumayer (2002) found that democracies place a greater area of their land under preservation and are
more likely to participate and comply with international environmental agreements and commitments.
 Didia (1997) indicates that democracies have lower rates of deforestation. In theoretical work, Eriksson and
Persson (2003) have shown that in a complete democracy a more equal income distribution favors less
pollution.

 Pretty and Ward (2001) provided numerous examples to show how social bonds and norms of behavior can
manifest themselves in local collective action to improve environmental performance but do not test these
relationships at a national level.
Continued
 Pretty and Ward (2001) provided numerous examples to show how social bonds and norms of behavior can manifest
themselves in local collective action to improve environmental performance but do not test these relationships at a national
level.
 Fredriksson, Neumayer, Damania, and Gates (in press) found that the number of environmental lobby groups and greater
political competition between political parties (particularly in countries with a high participation rate in elections) raises the
stringency of environmental policies as measured by the lead content in gasoline.
 López and Mitra (2000) developed a theoretical model showing government institutions' importance on environmental
outcomes. They found that the potential exists for higher than optimal pollution levels because of corruption and rent-
seeking behavior.
 Damania, Fredriksson, and List (2003) developed a theoretical model and tested the relationships between trade
liberalization, corruption, and environmental policy formation.
 They found that the higher government honesty, the lower the lead content in gasoline. Using a different theoretical model,
Fredriksson, Vollebergh, and Dijkgraaf (2004) also found that higher levels of corruption lower the stringency of energy
policy as measured by energy intensity.
 This lecture is intended to show whether a broad range of social determinants (civic and public social capital, social
divergence, and social capacity) has a significant and beneficial effect on national measures of environmental quality.

 We will discuss whether differences in civic, social capital (trust, civic behavior, and participation in volunteer activities),
public social capital (democracy and corruption), social divergence (ethnolinguistic fractionalization ELF, land inequality, and
religious homogeneity), and social capacity (calorie intake and human capital) explain cross-country differences in
environmental performance.
 Defining the Social Determinant-Environment Relationships

 Many definitions and measures exist for social capital, social divergence, social capacity, and
environmental performance or quality.
 SOCIAL CAPITAL: Putnam (1993) broadly defined social capital as “the features of social
organization . . . that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (pp. 35-36)
that are embodied in networks and civic engagement.
 Using this definition, social capital may be measured by variables such as norms of behavior,
participation in voluntary associations, and trust—an explanatory variable that has been used as
a proxy for social capital in other contexts (Knack & Keefer, 1997).
 Civic social capital: These features of social capital are generally measured at an individual,
household, or local level and thus can be termed civic social capital.

 Public social capital: The concept of social capital also encompasses institutional quality at
higher levels of aggregation and may be broadly measured by democratic accountability and
corruption within the political system. These features of social capital institutions and their
relationship to the public at large, may be termed public social capital closely related to the
performance of public institutions and their relationship to the public at large and may be
termed public social capital.
Continued….
 Social divergence: A related concept is social divergence, which represents the social barriers to
communication between individuals and groups (Grafton, Knowles, & Owen, 2002).
 The greater the social divergence the lower is the opportunity for collective action that may help address
environmental concerns.
 Social divergence may be measured by such variables as religious and ethnic diversity and wealth inequality, which reflect
broad social divisions and potential barriers to the exchange of ideas across social groups.
 Social capacity: Social capacity is the potential for individuals to achieve their human potential and may be
measured by a number of commonly used and available development indices.
 For instance, poor health or nutrition status or low levels of education are development indices that proxy
lower levels of social capacity and may reduce the ability of a society to resolve its environmental problems.
 ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS: No single set of measures can adequately describe the multifaceted nature of
the environment or fully capture transboundary effects and pollution consequences that accumulate over time.
 Despite these potential difficulties, proxies of primary environmental quality that are routinely collected
include measures of air quality, water quality, use of natural resources, and land-use change.
 Possible land-use environmental measures include water withdrawals as a proportion of the total available,
changes in land cover, and various measures of soil erosion.
Continued…
 Possible land-use environmental measures include water withdrawals as a proportion of the total
available, changes in land cover, and various measures of soil erosion.
 For air and water quality, ambient levels of different pollutants are often recorded, as are total
levels of emissions for some pollutants. Regarding air quality, ambient levels of sulfur dioxides,
nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, and total suspended particulates
are commonly recorded in urban locations.
 Ambient measures of water quality collected include fecal coliform, dissolved oxygen, and
phosphorous, among others.
 These ambient measures of environmental quality are obtained for specific sites and at particular
points in time; thus they are not necessarily representative of the state of nature in a country as a
whole.
 In addition to primary measures of environmental quality, secondary indicators of environmental
performance also exist.
 For example, the number of species at risk is an indirect measure of environmental quality as it is
a function of both the classification and the resources spent in wildlife research as well as
environmental factors such as habitat degradation
 Continued
 Other indirect measures may include the performance of governments or national institutions in
committing themselves to achieve defined environmental targets or agreements such as the
Framework Conventions on Climate Change, The Montreal Protocol (on substances that deplete the
ozone layer), and the Convention on Biological Diversity.
 The most robust result from the eminent studies is that an increase in population density is
associated with increased environmental degradation.
 Some evidence is also found that an increase in per capita income is associated with an improvement
in some measures of environmental performance.
 BRIDGING VERSUS BONDING SOCIAL CAPITAL

 The extent to which aggregate measures of social capital, social divergence, and social capacity play a role in
determining national environmental performance likely depends on how societies are structured.
 For instance, Putnam (2000) distinguished between bridging social capital, which links across groups and aids
information diffusion, and bonding social capital, which helps to reinforce existing and more exclusive identities and
groupings.
 Thus, if measures of social capital such as association membership merely reflect bonding social capital, this may not
necessarily have any positive effect on the national levels of environmental performance.
 Indeed, it is conceivable that some forms of bonding social capital such as strong union membership in the so-called
rust belt or heavy polluting industries, may even be detrimental to environmental quality.
 Evidence that social capital may improve environmental performance at the local level, however, does not necessarily
imply that the federation of such networks on a national level (Pretty & Ward, 2001) will be successful or that the
requirements for effective collective action will exist at higher levels of aggregation.
 Furthermore, increasing membership in social organizations that focus on the environment does not necessarily imply
a rise in civic engagement focused on the environment (Putnam, 2000, p. 53).
 Indeed, given the time constraints on all individuals, the greater the time spent in one particular set of activities or
networks the less time, that can be devoted to competing activities.
ECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS

 Economic and demographic factors dominate environmental quality (or degradation). Xepapadeas and Amri
(1998) found that the probability of having acceptable environmental quality changes with the level of economic
development.

 Another implication of our findings, supported by the work of Bruvoll and Medin (2003), is that technical
factors represented by emissions intensities and input intensities appear to play a dominant role in explaining
environmental degradation.

 This suggests that policies directed at reducing emissions, input intensities, and technical innovation are critical
instruments in environmental policy.
Concluding remarks….
 Social determinants affect the economy and environment in more complex ways than is
commonly thought.
 For example, social determinants may improve economic performance and raise per
capita incomes that, in turn, can have a scale effect that may increase environmental
degradation.
 The implications of the discussion are that factors associated with income, and
especially demographic considerations, play an important role in explaining cross-
national environmental performance.
 Our discussion suggests that if policymakers wish to improve overall national
environmental performance, they should focus on changing economic and demographic
structural factors by limiting future increases in population density and lowering
national emission and input intensities.