SOCIAL CAPITAL READING LIST
We've divided this bibliography into 5 sections:
- 1) Recent articles/books by Putnam and/or Sander
- 2) Best introductory articles/books on social capital
- 3) Other interesting books related to social capital
- 4) Good recent books on social capital
- 5) Books critical or questioning of social capital
In addition, we worked together in 1999 with the World Bank on a much
more thorough list of works on “social capital.” That
list can be accessed here.
Recent articles/books by Robert D. Putnam
and/or Thomas Sander
Robert D. Putnam, "The Rebirth of American Civic Life", Sunday Boston Globe Op-Ed (3/2/08)
Robert D. Putnam, 'E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the 21st Century' (June 2007, Scandinvanian Political Studies Journal)
'How's the job? Are Trust and Social Capital Neglected Social Capital Investments?' (2007) (John Helliwell, Haifang Huang and Robert Putnam) Forthcoming in an edited volume, but an earlier version of a Helliwell/Huang paper on this topic available here.
Robert D. Putnam, “Education and Social Capital,” Eastern Economics Journal, vol. 33:1-19 (2007, with John Helliwell).
Let's Get Connected, TIME Viewpoint, September 11, 2006 (Robert D. Putnam, with John Bridgeland)
You Gotta Have Friends
A study finds that Americans are getting lonelier, TIME Viewpoint, July 3, 2006 (Robert D. Putnam)
“Sept. 11 as Civics Lesson” Washington Post Op-Ed, September 10, 2005 (Robert D. Putnam/ Thomas H. Sander)
The Social Context of Well-Being (In The Science of Well-Being) (2005) (John F. Helliwell and Robert Putnam)
"A Nation of Doers Needs to Do More" , Philadelphia Inquirer Op-Ed, December 3, 2004 (Robert D. Putnam, with John Bridgeland)
In "A Better Society In A Time Of War", New
York Times Op-Ed, 10/19/01, p. A19, (Robert D. Putnam) On a comparison of the efforts made by Pearl Harbor to reinvigorate American civil society versus efforts made post 9-11.
Robert D. Putnam, Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon
and Schuster, 2000)
Robert D. Putnam, 1996: The Civic Enigma (June 2005 reflection back on 1995 article Bowling Alone and what's been learned since then).
Robert D Putnam, “Health By Association: some comments” in International Journal of Epidemiology
(7/28/04).
Robert D Putnam, Education, Diversity, Social Cohesion and Social Capital (3/18/04 talk to OECD Education Ministers: Raising the Quality of Education for All, Dublin)
Robert D. Putnam, Better
Together: Restoring the American Community (Simon & Schuster,
September 2003), with co-author Lew Feldstein,
containing roughly
a dozen chapters each describing promising new forms of social
connectedness in diverse communities across America and what can
be learned from across these examples.
Robert D. Putnam, Democracies
in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society (Oxford
University Press, 2002)
Robert D Putnam, “Community-based social capital
and educational performance” in Making
Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society, edited by Diane
Ravitch and Joseph Viteritti (New Haven CT: Yale
University Press, 2001).
Robert D. Putnam, " The Strange Disappearance
of Civic America" (American Prospect, 1996)
Robert D. Putnam, " Bowling Alone: America's Declining
Social Capital" (Journal of Democracy, 1995) (subscription only site)
- reprinted here and long excerpt of "Bowling Alone" article available here.
Robert D. Putnam, "The Prosperous Community: Social
Capital and Public Life" (American Prospect, Spring 1993)
Robert D. Putnam, Foreword for volume of Housing Policy
Debate on social capital, Housing Policy Debate, Volume 9, Issue
1 (1998).
Robert D. Putnam, Making
Democracy Work (Princeton Press, 1993).
“Sept. 11 as Civics Lesson” Washington Post Op-Ed, September 10, 2005 (Thomas H. Sander/Robert D. Putnam)
Thomas H. Sander, Create a New Us (TIME magazine, September 15, 2008)
Thomas H. Sander, The Boomers Are Coming (FORUM magazine, Jan-Feb. 2007).
A Friend in Need describing the growing gap in social capital between rich and poor (Thomas H. Sander, 11/14/05, Boston Globe)
Thomas Sander, “Social capital and civic engagement of individuals over age 50 in the United States” (with Robert D. Putnam) in Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation, Laura B. Wilson, and Sharon Simson, eds. (Haworth Press, 2006).
NEW: Social capital in K-12 schools and curricula (v.1.1) (Dec.. 2006)
NEW: “Social Capital Building Toolkit (Version 1.2)" (Thomas Sander/Kathleen Lowney) (revised 2006)
Thomas Sander, “E-Associations? Using Technology to Connect Citizens: the Case of Meetup.com” Paper for American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Conference in Washington, DC, September 2005. Another version of this paper available as a Taubman Center Working Paper.
Presentation by Thomas Sander on Meetup research at Berkman Center's Bits & Bytes conference, Dec. 10, 2004. [Meetup presentation starts at 22:30 into the webcast through 41:00 and then there are Q&A from 1:13:00 through 1:36:00 of the presentation.] This is from an earlier presentation on the Meetup research than the APSA paper above.
Thomas Sander, “E-associations: Can Technology Reverse Declining Civic Engagement?” in Taubman Center for State and Local Government Annual Report , April 2005.
Introductory Text on Social Capital for 'Hab & Gut/Was ein Dorf kann' exhibit in Schwarzenberg, Austria (June 2005). For information on the show click here.
Thomas Sander co-editor, Encyclopedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World, Sage Reference, 2003.
Thomas Sander, “Flash-in-the-pan Mobs?” Harvard Crimson Op-Ed. September 17, 2003.
“Walking the Civic Talk after September 11” (Op-Ed) in Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 19, 2002 (Thomas Sander, Robert D. Putnam).
Thomas Sander, “Social Capital and New Urbanism: Leading a Civic Horse to Water?” National Civic Review. Fall 2002. Vol. 91, Issue 3.
“Community Foundations and Social Capital”,
in Building
Philanthropic and Social Capital: The Work of Community Foundations,
ed Peter Walkenhorst, Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers,
2001. (Thomas Sander with Lewis Feldstein)
“Schools and Social Capital,” in School Administrator, Sept. 1999 (Thomas Sander/Robert D. Putnam)
“Environmental Impact Statements and Their Lessons for Social Capital Analysis” (Thomas Sander) (1999)
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For a much shorter list of
some books and articles that will help to introduce you to the
concept of social capital, we recommend the following:
Robert D. Putnam, Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (Simon
and Schuster, 2000)
Robert D. Putnam, Democracies
in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society (Oxford
University Press, 2002)
Robert D. Putnam and Lewis Feldstein, Better
Together: Restoring the American Community (Simon & Schuster,
September 2003).
David Halpern, Social Capital. Polity Press, U.K., 2004. [Good discussion of social capital and a very useful distinction of micro, meso and macro level social capital and posits that social capital may achieve its effect by different causal pathways at the different levels.]
Ahn, T.K., Elinor Ostrom, eds. Foundations
of Social Capital: A Reader. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing
Ltd. (2003) [Many interesting chapters, but see especially introduction
by Ahn and Ostrom which is quite good, although it focuses overly
on social capital as a vehicle to solve collective action problems,
and not enough on the “private returns” to individuals
from being in social networks.
Elinor Ostrom and James Walker (Editors). Trust
and Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons for Experimental Research.
Field, John. Social Capital. (Routledge, 2004) A good and readable summary of the concept of social
capital, the ideas of 3 key social capital thinkers -- Bordieu, Coleman, and Putnam --
a distillation of the work showing the importance of social capital to education,
economy and health, a discussion of the dark side of social capital and a discussion of social capital policy.
Briggs, Xavier de Souza. "Social Capital and the Cities: Advice to Change Agents." National Civic Review 86,
No. 2 (Summer 1997): 111-118.
Gladwell, Malcolm. "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg." January
11, 1999. New Yorker. http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_01_11_a_weisberg.htm
[Article quite useful on the value of bridging social capital --
although he calls them *connectors* -- only weakness is that he makes
it sound like there are Herculean connectors, like Lois Weisberg,
or non-connectors, when in reality even individuals who have some
bridging relationships are adding a lot of value.] Discussion of this also
found in The Tipping Point
Patric Overton (Ed.), Rebuilding the Front Porch of America: Essays on the Art of Community Making (1997), focuses especially on smaller or rural communities.
Michael Barry Winer and Karen Louise Ray, Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey (1994)
Better Together, The Report of the Saguaro Seminar:
Civic Engagement in America.
(2002 Reprint of 2000 Report, with new introduction; recommends strategies
for re-engaging American communities).
First third is at: http://www.bettertogether.org/pdfs/bt_1_29.pdf
Second third is at: http://www.bettertogether.org/pdfs/bt_30_87.pdf
Final third is at: http://www.bettertogether.org/pdfs/bt_88_100.pdf
Click here for other general introduction material introducing social capital
...for other material on youth and social capital
...for other material on government and social capital.
...for other material on politics and social capital
...for other material on faith and social capital
...for other material on work and social capital
...for other material on the arts and social capital.
...for other material on technology and social capital.
...for materials on other topics (animals, social networks) and social capital.
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Other quite interesting works related to social capital are:
NEW:
Scott Page, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Teams, Schools and Societies (2007). The Difference doesn't focus on social capital per se, but discusses how diversity unlocks group creativity and how diversity trumps ability. The fascinating book also discusses how diversity is an asset in problem-solving but can be a detriment to the group when it comes to selecting a choice.
There's a quartet of books on how humans are wired from an evolutionary perspective to cooperate: those humans who learned when and how to cooperate increasingly survived to pass on their genes:
1) Ridley, Matt. The
Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation.
(Penguin Books: NY, NY, 1997).
2) Elliot Sober and David Sloan Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
3) Peter Singer. A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation (Yale University Press, 2000).
4) Richard Dawkins: How A Scientist Changed the Way We Think (Oxford Univ. Press, 2006, ed. Alan Grafen and Matt Ridley). Describes how Richard Dawkins with The Selfish Gene helped change our thinking about how cooperation and altruism could be in the interests of our genes trying to perpetuate themselves. (Book review available here.)
Buchanan, Mark. Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking
Science of Networks (W.W. Norton & Company, 2002). The
book explains the conundrum of *small worlds* (how you can be a
handful of social
links away from millions or billions of others, but have most of
your social friends be local). The book also describes the difference
between egalitarian and aristocratic small worlds, and how small
worlds pop up in very different scientific domains.
Watts, Duncan J. Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected
Age (W.W.
Norton & Company, 2003). The book describes the emerging science of networks and how the structure of the network, the behavior of individuals of individuals in a network determine how the network is used
and the benefits of the network. The book also tries to link the behavior of social networks to the spread of computer viruses, behavior of financial markets, etc.
Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations (Doubleday, 2004). This
fascinating book shows how groups can effectively
aggregate information held by individual members, one of the clear benefits of social capital (beyond eased collective action). Nevertheless,
Surowiecki often focuses on less social-capital-friendly mechanisms (e.g., group averaging or information markets). This process of gathering information
(or wisdom) from groups effectively is not always a simple one as this recent very interesting paper by Cass Sunstein on Group Judgments shows.
Seabright, Paul. The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (Princeton Univ. Press, 2004). This very readable and thought-provoking book illustrates how trust underpins a highly sophisticated economy that links strangers inextricably and fragilely together.
Barabasi, Alberto-Laszlo. Linked: The New Science of Networks (2002). Describes the frequency of 'free-scale' (or power hub) networks across biological, technological and social networks where a few nodes (people, website, biological cells, etc.) are much more connected than all others. This develops because new nodes disproportionately link to the popular and high-value sites. Such power hub networks are less prone to disruption from random attacks (since only a few of the nodes are huge hubs) but much more fragile to targeted attacks on these hubs. It is unclear how much of these free-scale network findings relate to social networks since it is much easier to scale a WWW router to be 10x its current size than multiply the hours of socializing of an individual ten-fold. More work needs to be done to understand whether these free-scale networks are found outside of business and professional hierarchies (where hierarchies explain power laws) and outside of e-mail networks (where scale is costless). Moreover, it will be interesting to see whether individuals heavily linked to others are more or less respected by them, and understand the relationship between those with lots of strong network ties and those with lots of weak network ties.
Phillip Ball's Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another (2004) is a look at the physics of community. What properties and laws can one observe about things like social networks, reciprocity, war, alliances, etc. First section is heavy on physics, but recommend chs. 9, 13-18.
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005) tries to sort out what factors determine whether societies survive over the long-term or not.
NEW: Peter Csermely, Weak Links: Stabilizers of Complex Systems from Proteins to Social Networks. Csermely, a former Foggarty Fellow at Harvard, helps show how weak links (analogous to bridging ties) strengthen networks. His free-ranging examples span fruitflies, omnivores and herbivores, and the role of women in networks, but collectively he shows how weak links reduce the reliance and dependence on hubs in social networks.
Horgen, Turid et al. Excellence by Design: Transforming Workplace and Work Practice (John Wiley & Sons, 1999) describes how process architecture -- involving the community in the design of buildings -- helps shape their ability to support social connections of employees using these buildings.
Social Capital, Inc. recommends a 2001 novel by Wendell Berry called Jayber Crow that beautifully describes the importance of social connections in enriching the protagonist's life in a small Kentucky town.
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Newer books relating to social capital:
NEW: Charles Dobson, who authored the terrific Citizen's Handbook has an updated guide called The Troublemaker's Teaparty.
NEW: Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People (2007) which explains in a very accessible book the health benefits to those volunteering or doing good deeds to others.]
NEW: David Wilson, Evolution for Everyone:
How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives (2007) which provides a terrific 'big picture' of evolution in layman's terms, useful for understanding the connection between evolution and social phenomena as broad as trust, morality, cheating, smiling and social capital.]
NEW: Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (2007) chronicles the role of the Christian church in suppressing public festivals and rituals that had dated back to cavemen days. The church feared that such carnivals (dancing, feasting, costuming, etc.) connected common man to God and undermined their authority. Europeans paid a heavy price with the suppression of these celebrations, starting in the 16th century: decreased joy, less healing, more social disconnection.]
NEW: Rosalind Edwards, Jane Franklin and Janet Holland (eds.), Assessing Social Capital: Concept, Policy and Practice (Taylor and Francis, 2006). Edited volume has pieces by renowned researchers on issues like social capital theory, policy development, and how to use social capital in research/practice.
Eric M. Uslaner, The Bulging Pocket and the Rule of Law: Corruption, Inequality, and Trust (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007). Some draft chapters of MS here.
NEW: Partners for Public Spaces, "The Great Neighborhood Book: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Placemaking" (releases Spring 2007). [Compendium of inspiring examples of how people have and are improving their neighborhoods, highlighting two dozen case study examplars.]
NEW: Allison Fine, Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age (2006) about how technology (social media) can be used to mobilize young Americans to bring about change. Read interview with author here.
NEW: The Search for Empowerment: Social Capital As Idea And Practice at the World Bank, (2006) (ed. Michael Woolcock et. al.) explores the change process within the World Bank around the introduction of social capital into its development paradigm.
NEW: The Great Books Foundation offers a new volume, The Civicly Engaged Reader, with collected essays from authors like Franz Kafka, Toni Morrison and Jane Addams. Bertolt Brecht, and Abraham Lincoln.
NEW: Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence, using recent neuroscience research, describes social intelligence as awareness of other people and sensitivity toward them. His discussion of how such social skills get passed from parents to children is extremely interesting. His book also distinguishes between a "low road" (more innately learned emotional response) and a "high road" that can repattern and rework emotions. (2006)
NEW: Jody Gittell, The Southwest Airlines Way (2005) which describes how Southwest Airlines achieved success in the airline industry through relational competence (basically social capital: e.g., improving the trust and communication among and between functional groups that needed to coordinate to quickly turn around aircraft on the ground).
NEW: Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space, John Bowen (Princeton Univ. Press, 2006) which discusses the French concept of laicite (loosely translated as secularism)
NEW: in Activism, Inc. Dana Fisher explains the cost of the political left's outsourcing their canvassing to college students on commission. (2006)
NEW: Arthur Brooks' Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism. (Basic Books, 2006) that asserts that religious conservatives are more generous than liberals.
NEW: In New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, Arlene Goldbard discusses how community-driven art can transform American society. (2006)
NEW: Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallstein, One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century; (2006) describes the GOP's massive data-gathering effort that enables them to micro-target voters and mobilize most likely voters based on issues of greatest interest to them.
NEW: “Ron Fournier, Douglas B. Sosnik and Matthew J. Dowd. Applebee's America (Simon & Schuster, 2006) discusses new techniques for connecting to other Americans (using Internet, religion, etc.).
NEW: Alistair Cooke's posthumously published book in 2006, The American Home Front, 1941-1942, is a remarkable book at conveying the social capital built by the Greatest Generation during the Second World War.
Schneider, Jo Anne. Social Capital and Welfare Reform: Organizations, Congregations, and Communities (2006) through rich ethnographic studies Schneider shows that the social relationships and patterns of trust that enable people to gain access to resources like government services, organization funding, and jobs are crucial in helping families achieve their goals.
Social Capital in the City: Community and Civic Life in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Voices, Philadelphia Vision), Richardson Dilworth (Ed.) (2006) discusses social capital in The City of Brotherly Love across both social contexts and time periods, with contributions discussing voter behavior, education, neighborhood life, church participation, park advocacy, and political activism.
Together Alone: Personal Relationships in Public Places, Ed. Calvin Morrill, David A. Snow, and Cindy H. White (Univ. California Press, 2005) describes how Americans crave fleeting relationships in public places.
Cook, Karen S., Russell Hardin and Margaret Levi, Cooperation Without Trust?, (NY, Sage Pub., 2005). On how economic actors can still beneficially cooperate even in the absence of trust.
Dave Campbell, Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life (Princeton University Press, 2005)
On relationships:
- Ferrazzi and Raz, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (2005)
- Friendship: An Expose by Joseph Epstein (2006)
- Treasure of a Friend by John Maxwell (1999)
- Relationships 101 by John Maxwell (2004)
- Roger and Sally Horchow, The Art of Friendship: 70 Simple Rules for Making Meaningful Connections (October 2006).
On happiness (highly related to social capital) there are a spate of NEW books:
- Darrin McMahon's Happiness: A History (2006)
- Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis (2006)
- Dan Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness (2006)
- Gregory Berns, Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment (2005).
- see also Matthieu Ricard, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill (2006); and Alain De Botton, The Architecture of Happiness (2006)
Gui, Benedetto and Robert Sugden (Eds), Economics and Social Interaction. Accounting for Interpersonal Relations (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005). An economic look on how to incorporate social interactions.
Pizzigatti, Sam. Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality That Limits Our Lives. (NY, Apex Press, Council on International & Public Affairs, 2005). On why trickle-down economics doesn't work and on the social costs of inequality.
Svendsen, Gunnar Lind Haase and Gert Tinggaard Svendsen, The Creation and Destruction of Social Capital: Entrepreneurship, Cooperative Movements and Institutions (Edward Elgar, 2005).
Allen, Danielle. Talking To Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v. Board of Education (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004). Allen's book teaches us to overcome a 'don't talk to strangers' mentality and build political friendships that are at the heart of democracy and social capital-building.
Herreros, Francisco. The Problem of Forming Social Capital: Why Trust? (Political Evolution and Institutional Change) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Herreros' slightly academic book uses game theory to address the pragmatic question of how to build social capital.
Fritjof Capra's The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems (describes the interrelationships and interdependence of psychological, biological, physical, social, and cultural phenomena).
[return to books/articles by Putnam and/or Sander, or key works on social capital.]
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Here are some books and articles
that are more negative towards social capital
Portes, Alejandro & Patricia Landolt. "The Downside of Social
Capital." The American Prospect 26 (May-June 1996): 18-21, 94.
Lemann, Nicholas. "Kicking
in Groups." Atlantic
Monthly (April 1996): 22-24.
Sobel, Joel, ” Can
We Trust Social Capital?”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XL (March 2002), pp. 139-154.
DeFilippis, James. “The Myth of Social Capital
in Community Development”. Housing Policy Debate. Vol. 11,
Issue 4 (2001).
Edwards, Bob, Michael Foley, Mario Diani (Eds.). Beyond
Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative
Perspective (University Press of New England, 2001). [some interesting
chapters.]
Edwards, Michael. Civil Society (Polity Press, 2004).
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Information
about social capital, and the
Social Capital Community Benchmark
Survey results:
Saguaro Seminar site
Provides overview of Professor Putnam’s
work to date, and the
historical Saguaro
Seminar meetings, and has links to various
other
social capital research and publications (Bowling Alone, Better Together,
Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey [SCCBS])
www.bowlingalone.com
Through vast new data, Putnam’s book
shows how we have become
increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our
democratic structures and how
we may reconnect.
www.bettertogether.org
Better Together is the Saguaro Seminar
report based on three years
of dialogue
among a diverse group of thinkers and
doers. This report
details promising
strategies and recommendations for
increasing
our social capital through
faith-based efforts, schools and youth,
the workplace, politics, and the arts.
Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey
Home page of the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS)
describing goals, methods, metrics, participants, results, etc.
World Bank Site for Social Capital
The World Bank site houses a social capital library, extensive bibliography,
measurement tools, and calendar of international events.
Social Capital Gateway
The Social Capital Gateway fine site on social capital worldwide including recent books, theses, social capital events and conferences, basic readings on social capital.
Observatory Pascal often has links to new interesting research on social capital.
www.infed.org/biblio/social_capital.htm
www.cpn.org/tools/dictionary/capital.html
Civic Practices Network has a good description of social capital.
There are also definitions of other related civic words in their CPN
dictionary.
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