Social Movements and Social Capital: A Network Perspective on Movement Outcomes

This article presents an approach to the study of the consequences of social movements that focuses on their capacity to produce "social capital." By social capital I mean ties that are based on mutual trust and mutual recognition among the actors involved in the relationship, although they do not necessarily imply the presence of collective identity. The influence of social movements may be regarded as dependent on their structural position, i.e., on the solidity of the linkages within the movement sector as well as—more crucially—of the bonds among movement actors, the social milieu in which they operate, and cultural and political elites. Therefore, the impact of a given movement or movement sector will be assessed in the light of changes in its components' relative centrality in various social networks. The broader the range of social capital ties emerging from a period of sustained mobilization, the greater the impact.