Challenging Robert Putnam

The publication in 2000 of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community elevated its author, Robert Putnam, to the status of guru of social capital. He defined social capital as the “connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that rise from them.” The speed with which this concept gained traction among development theorists and community activists testifies to its apparent utility. For those working in developing societies, frustrated by the failure of conventional economic approaches, it seemed to explain weak public institutions, non-functioning markets and failed states. It helped to justify the new focus on governance and institution-building; it even gave social scientists at the World Bank and elsewhere a way to quantify social phenomena and so wrest back some legitimacy from the economists.

Putnam viewed social capital as the glue binding societies together: it creates more...