One Thing or Many?
(3)
examining how fungible social capital might be across different issue areas and levels. While it
is important to select a specific definition for this purpose – a plethora of sometimes conflicting
definitions tend to muddy contemporary explorations of social capital (Baron and Hannan 1994)
– it is argued that the specific definition selected here does not materially change the conclusions
that are derived.
Putnam’s (1995: 67) definition of social capital as "features of social organization such as
networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit"
points to the central role that collective action plays in achieving the expected superior results.
Social capital has been regarded as a propensity for mutually beneficial collective action that
some groups possess to a higher extent than others (Uphoff 2000). This close correspondence
between social capital and mutually beneficial collective action is particularly helpful, for it
enables us to expand our investigation beyond the somewhat narrow ambit provided by social
capital theory alone.
Social capital has only recently become a prominent concept in the social science literature.
Analysts have focused mostly so far on demonstrating the effects that social capital can have
within different arenas. Relatively less work has been done to establish the equivalence of the
social capital concept that is employed in these different arenas. “The point is approaching,”
asserts Portes (1998: 2), “at which social capital comes to be applied to so many events and in so
many different contexts as to lose any distinct meaning.” Is the social capital that is found to be
productive in relation with national economic performance in different countries the same as the
Convention