POLICY ARENA: ‘Missing link’ or analytically missing?: The concept of social capital. Edited by John Harriss. An introductory bibliographic essay

This paper offers a substantial review of the ways in which the concept of ‘social capital’ has been used in the recent theoretical and policy literatures. Attention is drawn to the significant difference between the way in which the term has been defined by its two major proponents, James Coleman and Robert Putnam. Putnam's usage, which is the one which has been taken over in development policy thinking by some in the World Bank, is subjected to substantial critique. It is concluded that policy arguments which pose civil society against the state, or which rest on the view that rich endowment in ‘social capital’ is a precondition for ‘good government’, are almost certainly misconceived.