Social capital and civil society

From Generating Social Capital - Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective (which is a bit more interested in the political and democratic ramifications of social capital than I am for this particular study)

Useful bits include from the intro by Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle:

social capital can be structural (eg networks) or attitudinal (eg trust and reciprocity) - I also have a note aking if it's also performative, but I haven't ever followed that up

there are two types of attitdutional - development of civic attitudes and social interactions (eg membership of a voluntary organisation) and institution centred (eg government, public policy and political institutions)

human and physical capital are individually owned but social capital is collectively owned (which goes back to my earlier post) and therefore vulnerable to neglect and freeriding

there are two traditions in approaching social capital - a sociological one interested in the large variety of benefits that social capital provides for individuals or for selected groups, and then a political science approach which "seems to apply a relatively normative view as social capital is often linked to largely societal benefits, mostly defined in terms of democractic goals" (I don't think they're very keen on this one - but it's interesting that they see a sociological/political split in approach compared to Dario Gaggio who sees an economic/sociological division)

they flag up the importance of overlapping memberships (from my memory, Putnam talks more about briding within a membership)

they quote various sources suggesting that "trust levels are typically lowest among the segments of the population with low living standards, with little educational attainment, and among minorities" it would be useful to see if this could be tested among Irish in early Victorian London

The chapter on the sources of social capital by Stolle has the following points (mostly about contemporary vol orgs):

some social capital theorists argue that social capital "does not exist independently in the realm of civil society: Governments, public policies, societal cleavages, economic conditions and political institutions channel and influence social capital such that it becomes either beneficial or detrimental resource for democracy

the problem of endogeneity - the effect of joining an association may not be much as those with higher levels of trust may just be more likely to join, and vice versa

claimes for vol orgs with face to face contact (over chequebook), bridging and overlapping ties and more mutual and egalitarian culture (over hierarchical) creating generalised values are not born out by empirical research

not necessarily much evidence of bridging in vol orgs (they tend to be a bit homogenous)

trust levels are linked to whether means testing or universal benefits are preferred - so maybe one could argue that the decline in social capital in early C19 led to more "scientific charity" approach over alms giving (contemporaries mostly seem to have blamed lack of direct contact between rich and poor but maybe this more generalized approach could be be worthwhile)

social capital research can miss more informal participation (eg women's networks of care and support)