(2)
One Thing or Many?
Analysts of social capital have shown in recent years how results in diverse issue-areas and at
different levels of societal aggregation respond positively to the available amount of social
capital. Social capital matters for national economic results and for regional institutions'
performance, it has been shown (Fukuyama 1995; Knack and Keefer 1997; Kenworthy 1997;
Lyon 2000; Morris 1998; Paxton 2002; Petro 2001; Putnam et al. 1993; Torsvik 2000). It
matters also for communities' welfare (Lam 1996; Krishna 2002a; Meinzen-Dick et al. 2002;
Seligson 1999; Uphoff and Wijayaratna 2000; Varshney 2001); for firms’ profitability
(Fernandez et al. 2000); for household income (Grootaert 1998; Narayan and Pritchett 1997;
Robinson and Siles 1999); and for individual well-being (Burt 1992; Coleman 1988, 1990; Lin
2001). From the lowest to the highest levels of societal aggregation, results in diverse issue-
areas have been shown to respond positively to a single common asset: social capital.
What has not been shown so clearly, however, is the nature of the causal chain that enables
social capital to have such broad-ranging effects. How does a resource generated primarily at the
individual and small-group level get transmitted upward to affect regional and national results?
How do diverse and unrelated issue-areas respond commonly to the influence of this asset? Is it
the same social capital that affects results in each of these various arenas? Or are there different
kinds of social capital that correspond, respectively, to each of these different levels and issue-
areas?
This paper examines these questions by looking at evidence available within the literatures
on social capital and collective action. Section 2 presents alternative conceptions of social
capital. The definition of social capital employed by Putnam (1993, 1995) is selected for
Convention