ABSTRACT
As I indicated in Chapter 6, social capital has recently re-emerged as a central concept for exploring the workings of the social fabric of markets, enterprise and civil society. By social capital is meant the ‘capacity of individuals to command scarce resources by virtue of their membership in networks or broader social structures…[T]he resources themselves are not social capital, the concept refers instead to the individual’s [and group’s] ability to mobilise them on demand’ (Portes 1995: 120). Hence social capital is embedded in a set of socially situated and culturally defined relations. These connections and commitments acquire particular significance once they are activated by specific actors in cooperation and/or competition with others in seeking to gain access to critical resources, or in attempting to deny or block access to others. Such resources encompass not only material or tangible benefits but also less tangible properties such as knowledge, skills, trust, shared values, organisational principles and representations.
