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Social Forces 82.3 (2004) 1209-1211



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Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. By Nan Lin. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 278 pp.

This book attempts, not always successfully, to synthesize a coherent whole from new chapters (for this book) and revised versions of earlier stand-alone publications on the concept of social capital;it is Nan Lin's attempt to ground social capital in its social theoretical roots, thereby providing it with the solid intellectual foundation it has (implicitly) heretofore been without. Opening with a discussion of capital theories in general, Lin moves on to spell out his version of a specifically social capital theory, using it to then address more substantive issues, for example the emergence of social structures, the processes of societal change, inequality in labor markets, and the appeal of on-line communities.

I really wanted this book to be good, but in the end I struggled to share the enthusiasm of the numerous luminaries who endorsed it. The most interesting and innovative aspects are Lin's attempt to integrate a Marxist ontology of capital (following Pierre Bourdieu) — one in which capital in any form is regarded as inherently social — with a rationalist epistemology of choice (à la [End Page 1209] James Coleman), in which individuals seek to attain both instrumental goals and social status. The extension of this approach to wrestling with the fundamental question of the micro-macro link was capably done, and it's always encouraging to see theoretical assertions boldly expressed as testable hypotheses.

The letdown has less to do with actual substance — most of which is reasonable enough, if hardly earth-shatteringly original or sophisticated — and a lot to do with style (which is to say, the amount of space and energy it takes to convey what are, in the end, relatively simple points). Most bothersome was its persistent disconnect from social problems and the actual debates in the wider social capital literature. That might sound like a cheap shot for a book on theory, but even a cursory reading of social capital's intellectual biography since the 1920s — from Jyda Hanifan on school reform and Jane Jacobs on urban vitality to Glen Loury on black marginalization, James Coleman on education performance and Robert Putnam on governance experiments — shows that the term has derived its influence from its capacity to forge an iterative dialogue between accessibly general story, sensibly coherent theory, rigorously documented evidence, and concretely specified policies and projects. All four are necessary, but at best only the theoretical pillar is on display here, and even then in such dense form as to be essentially unusable.

The insularity of Lin's approach is evident most clearly when it comes to addressing debates in the social capital literature, a literature he views as one bordered almost entirely by the contributions of network sociologists. This matters, because it is not: network sociologists occupy an important but relatively modest place in sociology, and the serious overlap only partially with those Lin identifies. Consider just the definition of social capital: for network scholars, social capital refers to the resources that inhere exclusively in networks, such as trust, favors, and information; for others, it the structure of the networks themselves — the strength and diversity of one's "portfolio" of social connections — that constitutes one's social capital. They are not the same thing, despite Lin's implication that any such differences are ones of degree rather than kind.

Followers of Francis Fukuyama (and they are many in eastern Europe and Latin America, yet Lin does not even cite him), moreover, regard social capital as the property of entire countries or cultures, while others urge a more parsimonious micro approach centered on individuals and households. Networks themselves are more central to some definitions of social capital than others, while Putnam himself — almost singlehandedly responsible for putting social capital into the public domain — has shifted from an early tripartite approach (social capital as the norms, networks, and trust facilitating collective action) in his work on Italian regional government to a much stronger focus in...

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