Understanding social capital: learning from the analysis and experience of participation

Abstract

All forms of capital represent assets of various kinds yielding streams of benefit. The income stream that flows from social capital is analyzed here as mutually beneficial collective action. The analysis delineates two main categories of social capital: structural (roles, rules, precedents, and procedures), and cognitive (norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs). A continuum of social capital is presented in terms of people's orientation toward positive-sum outcomes and toward positive interdependence of utilityfunctions. A case studyfrom Sri Lanka shows how the twoforms of social capital can produce substantial material benefits. Farmer organizations established under a donor project in the early 1980s produced unexpected and otherwise unobtainable rice production results in an acutely water-short season (1997) when government engineers had figured that no rice could or should be grown. By effective cooperation and by equitable sharing of scarce water,farmers achieved a better than normal crop, worth some $20 million.