Community participation - Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Understanding the links between participation in governance …
There is no reason to suppose that linking social capital will be
‘distributed evenly or brokered fairly’
The reason why the combination of different types of social capital matters so much
is that the value of social capital, to a citizen, group or whole community, depends on
whether they are able to access and exploit it. In this sense, social capital is a bit like
legal tender – it is valuable at some times and in some places, and not at all valuable
in others. 13
For example, when it comes to community cohesion, it is clear that bridging social
capital needs to be shared among a critical mass of people before it has any real
value – if 500 people of different ethnic backgrounds in an area know one another it
may help to promote good race relations, but if only five do it’s not likely to make
much difference. By contrast, linking social capital is more likely to be embodied in
key relationships between particular individuals or organisations, for example
between the chair of a residents’ association and the housing professionals in the
local authority. 14
Importantly, one of the things that makes social capital, and particularly linking social
capital, valuable to some people is actually the very ability to exclude others from
accessing it. 15 A local authority that wants to work with the community and voluntary
sector, for example, might choose to build good relationships with a few key
organisations by giving them access to a particular forum, or councillor or officer, or
funding regime. 16 But it can only do that if it excludes other organisations from
accessing the same resources. That’s because, if it gives all organisations access to
these resources, then their value diminishes considerably – they become one voice
among many at a forum, one opinion among many for the councillor to weigh up, a
recipient of one very small grant from a funding regime. The crucial point is that, like
any form of capital, social capital ‘is neither brokered equitably nor distributed
evenly’. 17 The value of social capital is often greater where the social networks
connecting participants are relatively closed; sanctions, norms and expectations are
easier to enforce, and trust is greater. 18 But this also leads to divisions between
these ‘insiders’ and ‘outsider’ individuals or groups who cannot benefit from the
social capital that closure creates.
That means we should be wary of thinking that linking social capital will accrue to a
large section of the community. The benefits the wider community derives from
linking social capital depend on the patterns of bonding and bridging social capital
that combine with it – in the example above, through the broader social networks and
ties that the residents’ association has with people in the neighbourhood.
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