Social capital and community development: Practitioner emptor

Abstract

Social capital has become the latest 'flavour of the month'. There is considerable disagreement over what the term means, and calls for theorising and measurement of the construct. Health promoters, among others, are being challenged to re-construct their efforts around this still contested idea. Social capital doesn't exist, but is being created by those aspects of social relations particular theorists or researchers choose to study in its name. The choice of these relations is directed by ideology. To those aligned more with neoliberal, market-driven ideology, social capital is a means to the end of economic growth, something that can pick up the slack of privatised or reduced public services. To those aligned more with social justice and communitarian ideology, social capital is an end in itself, requiring the defence of strong, egalitarian state intervention into market practices that create inequalities. Community development is one of many state interventions used to buffer market-generated inequalities. Social capital may be a useful concept for practitioners, researchers and policy makers in bring the missing 'social' into economic and fiscal policy debates. But its use should be approached cautiously as a construct of potential strategic value. It should not confuse all of the previous 'good' work undertaken in the name of empowerment and community capacity.