Social Capital and Development: Elements and Dimensions

From within the body of scholarly works that the fields of sociology and political science produced in the 1980s, the notion of a new form of capital emerged. This new form did not adhere to the traditional canons that the science of economics had popularized for the forms of capital in which individuals and business invest to achieve the best possible return, such as machinery, land and buildings, or stocks and bonds. Rather, what emerged was a form of capital that came to be known as “social capital” and it had distinct characteristics. In addition to being new, it was also unusual, with traits that were not easily understood because they appeared to even contradict the adjective, “social,” that defined the concept. Indeed and peculiarly, this new form, unlike all other forms of capital, was not produced by individuals or by business, and it was not quantified in terms of economic returns and contributions to the national wealth. Nor was it a tangible asset that could be visually observed as currency bills and buildings or perceived in terms of its financial returns and measured in the changing value of stocks and bonds or bought and sold on the open market. Thus, the question is in order: what is the meaning of the term “social” in the concept of social capital?