This article is concerned with social capital as the concept has been used to further the analysis of political life. Its substantive focus is the work of Robert Putnam and his part in the revival of a civic conception of democracy. The article suggests two strategies for analysing the relationship between social capital theory and conceptions of liberal-democratic government. In the first section the concept of social capital is interrogated in terms of its political imagination. This is pursued by way of a comparison of the assumptions and norms of social capital and political culture theory - the latter being a perspective that shaped post-war political analysis. The second part of the article situates social capital in relation to the Foucauldian literature on government. It asks how we might see social capital in terms of a new kind of territorialization of socio-political relations.
Agnew, J. (1994) `Timeless Space and State Centrism: The Geographical Assumptions of International Relations Theory', in G. Rosow, N. Inayatullah and M. Rupert (eds) The Global Economy as Political Space. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
2.
Almond, G. and Verba, S. (1963) The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3.
Barry, A. , Osborne, T. and Rose, N. (1996) Foucault and Political Reason. London: UCL Press.
4.
Coleman, J.S. (1988) `Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital', American Journal of Sociology94(Supplement): S95-S120.
5.
Donzelot, J. (1988) `The Promotion of the Social', Economy and Society17.
6.
Donzelot, J. (1991) `The Mobilization of Society', in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
7.
Edwards, M. (n.d.) `Enthusiasts, Tacticians and Sceptics: The World Bank, Civil Society and Social Capital'.
8.
Foley, M.W. and Edwards, B. (1997) `Escape from Politics? Social Theory and the Social Capital Debate', American Behavioral Scientist40: 550-561.
9.
Foucault, M. (1997) `The Birth of Biopolitics', in P. Rabinow (ed.) Michel Foucault. Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. New York: New Press.
10.
Galston, W. (1996) `Won't you be my Neighbour?', The American Prospect26(May-June). URL (accessed 24 February 1999): http://www.prospect.org/archives/26/26-cnt1.html
11.
Hall, P. (1999) `Social Capital in Britain', British Journal of Political Science29: 417-461.
12.
Hindess, B. (1998) `Neoliberalism and the National Economy', in M. Dean and B. Hindess (eds) Governing Australia: Studies in Contemporary Rationalities of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Jackman, R. and Miller, R. (1998) `Social Capital and Politics', Annual Review of Political Science1: 47-73.
14.
Lane, R. (1997) The Art of Comparative Politics. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
15.
Levi, M. (1996) `Social and Unsocial Capital', Politics and Society24: 45-55.
16.
Levitas, R. (1996) `The Concept of Social Exclusion and the New Durkheimian Hegemony', Critical Social Policy16.
17.
Mitchell, T. (1991) `The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics', American Political Science Review85.
18.
Portes, A. (1998) `Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology', Annual Review of Sociology24: 1-24.
19.
Putnam, R. (1993) `The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life', American Prospect13: 35-42.
20.
Putnam, R. (1995a) `Tuning In, Tuning Out: The Strange Disappearance of Social Capital in America', PS: Political Science and Politics28: 664-683.
21.
Putnam, R. (1995b) `Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital', Journal of Democracy6: 65-78.
22.
Putnam, R. , with Leonardi, R. and Nanetti, R. (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
23.
Rose, N. (1996) `The Death of the Social? Refiguring the Territory of Government', Economy and Society25: 327-356.
24.
Rose, N. (1999) `Inventiveness in Politics', Economy and Society28: 467-493.
25.
Rose, N. and Miller, P. (1992) `Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government', British Journal of Sociology43: 172-205.
26.
Ross, M.H. (1997) `Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis', in M.I. Lichbach and A.S. Zuckerman (eds) Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure. New York: Cambridge University Press.
27.
Rotberg, R. (1999) `Social Capital and Political Culture in Africa, America, Australasia, and Europe', Journal of Interdisciplinary History29: 339-356.
28.
Skocpol, T. (1996) `Unravelling from Above?', The American Prospect25. URL (accessed: 24 February 1999): http://www.prospect.org/archives/25/25-cnt2.html
29.
Somers, M. and Gibson, G. (1994) `Reclaiming the Epistemological Other: Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity', in C. Calhoun (ed.) Social Theory and the Politics of Identity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
30.
Tarrow, S. (1996) `Making Social Science Work Across Space and Time', American Political Science Review90: 389-397.
31.
Taylor, P. (1996) `Embedded Statism and the Social Sciences: Opening Up New Spaces', Environment and PlanningA 28.
32.
Walker, D. (1999) `All Together Now', The Guardian (12 July).
33.
Walters, W. (2000) Unemployment and Government: Genealogies of the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
