Issue 3, 2009   

Social Capital and Integration. Asked too much of Civil Society?

Sandra Seubert: Crisis or Chance for Societal Integration? The Meaning of Social Capital for a Theoretical Analysis of Democracy, FJ NSB 3/2009, pp 21-28.

For some time the concept of social capital was mainly discussed in the context of foundations of a vibrant civil society. Now there are indications for a shift towards questions of social inequality. The article discusses the question under which conditions social capital can be regarded as a resource for supporting civic republican reforms. It tries to re-evaluate the potentials and the limits of the concept for a theoretical analysis of democracy.

Bruno Frère: Social Capital and the „New Spirit of Capitalism“. The Ideology of the Connected Man and New Ways of Exploitation, FJ NSB 3/2009, pp 29-45.

Regardless of existing social security systems the number of the excluded is growing in the contemporary information economies. The job market is splitting in two segments. The first segment is occupied by mobile and well connected persons. The excluded who do not possess huge amounts of social capital are members of the second segment. Nevertheless the use of the social capital concept by the OECD suggests that developing social capital allows a reintegration of the excluded in the primary labour market. Following the analysis of Boltanski and Chiapello in their ,New Spirit of Capitalism‘ it should be asked, whether this promise is misleading and part of an ideological discourse which justifies the flexible economy. Connecting social capital and employability – as current discourse in economic and network-sociology are proposing – underestimates the fact, that the immobile and exluded workers are in many ways a prerequsite of the life style of the mobile and flexible workers. For this reason a new conception of social capital is needed to overcome the ideal of a connected „Übermensch“ and the false promise of an adjustement of the excluded to the connected. This conception focusses on the political implications of social capital and is closely connected to an alternative and solidarity economy. Examples for the development of a locally bounded social capital are found in France and Quebec. They aim less at the adaption to the mobile economy, but at the satisfaction of municipal needs. Although these attempts are in no way a universal remedy they open up perspectives to stable employment and the recovery of citizenship.

Martin Hartmann: Social Capital in the Network Society, FJ NSB, 3/2009, pp 46-54 .

In Robert Putnams Making Democracy Work (1993) social capital comprises features of social organisations such as trust, norms and networks that facilitate cooperation. Later Putnam uses social capital merely by refering to networks. In his article Martin Hartmann analyzes the relation between networks and social capital in relying on Putnam’s distinction between horizontal and vertical networks. While Putnam assumes that vertical networks, that is networks between unequal oder unequally powerful individuals cannot engender norms of reciprocal obligation and thus cannot produce social capital Hartmann claims that social capital can be produced in the context of asymmetrical relations. To substantiate this thesis an economic model of networks is introduced and linked to neoliberal contemporary capitalism. In builiding upon the work of Boltanski and Chiapello it is further assumed that neoliberal capitalism is a network capitalism in which those who can successfully act in these networks as they are flexible and in possession of key qualifications rely on the work of a static and hardly recognized stratum of „doubles“ that locally administers and organizes the social capital from which the successful, the ‘network opportunists’, profit. There is trust between these opportunists and their servants, a trust that even appears to be equally distributed. However, the network structures at hand lack the mechanisms, given in other, more intimate contexts of action, to sanction any breach of trust. This way network capitalism profits from a seemingly equal trust while not provinding the less priviledged individuals with the means to sanction breaches of trust in their own interest.

Petra Böhnke: Social Capital and Poverty – Beneficial Networking or Social Closure? FJ NSB 3/ 2009, pp 55-65.

Social Capital is supposed to be the key to social integration. Petra Böhnke analyzes to what extent and to what avail unprivileged people can use social capital. In this context she shows how integration and potential for support during times of poverty and unemployment depend on the design of social welfare and cultural norms. Also, it is still unclear how the availability social capital changes with social decline. Three theoretical possibilities have to be checked: 1. active citizenship is declining due to the lack of financial resources; 2. there is no relation between impoverishment and active citizenship since engagement is rooted in stable personal attitudes and impoverishment mostly encounters already underprivileged milieus with less engagement; 3. active citizenship is intensified since it offers recognition and the feeling of doing something useful. Analyses show that compensatory strategies are nearly never used by poor people. Here, networking is not expanded; rather, there is a retreat into familial relationships with a cutback on social engagement. Hence, inequalities in the societal structure seem to be reproduced by mechanisms of social integration.

Ludgera Vogt: Closed shop. Excluding effects of social capital – The Example of a German Community Foundation, FJ NSB 3/2009, pp 66-75.

In her article Ludgera Vogt focuses on the excluding effects of social capital. Referring to Robert Putnam’s distinction between ‚bridging‘ and ‚bonding‘ she illustrates the excluding effects based on the analysis of a German community foundation. Especially the way of recruiting donors and members, which was done by a pyramid scheme within the local elites, led to a homogeneous structure of members. This missing representativeness, in turn, led to the foundation being not as accepted and attractive as it would have been required for the fulfilment of its tasks.

Sebastian Braun: Associative Lifeworld, Bonding Social Capital and Chosen Communities of Taste, FJ NSB 3/2009, pp 76-87.

The term social capital in the connotation of Robert Putnam has a sustainable influence on discussions on civil society. These discussions consider voluntary associations with their embeddedness in lifeworld as being ,producers‘ of social capital. Against this background Sebastian Braun concentrates on the question of what qualifies voluntary associations to be regarded as specific institutions for (re-)production of social capital. To account for the potential of voluntary associations, Braun refers to a theoretical concept of voluntary associations as „communities of choice“.