Beyond putnam: Culture, social capital and freedoms in the south of Brazil

Abstract

In the debates on territorial development, the culturalist version of Social Capital (Robert Putnam) and the Capability Approach (Amartya Sen) reached prominence in the 90s. Based on the notion of development elaborated by Sen, the article scrutinizes the pertinence of Putnam's thesis in order to verify how much the social capital is able to expand capabilities, thus shifting the focus from growth to well-being. The empirical basis are the 496 municipalities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which is rich and diverse in ethnic and cultural terms. Contrary to the core of Putnam's argument, the results show that social capital is not relevant to explain the reality of municipalities in terms of Employment and Income. However, it is, nevertheless, important to explain health and education performance. These results relativize and complexify the culturalist hypothesis, as well as highlight other elements and mechanisms underlying territorial disparities.