Formalist and relationalist approaches to social capital
Emily Erikson and
Jeffrey Sachs
Chapter 2 in Handbook on Inequality and Social Capital, 2024, pp 10-21 from Edward Elgar Publishing
Abstract:
Social capital is a notoriously inclusive term. This chapter breaks down the category of social capital using the theoretical perspectives of formalism and relationalism as articulated within network theory. Formalist approaches to social network analysis stress lawlike structural elements in patterns of association that have consistent effects across time and place. Relationalist approaches put more emphasis on the contents of interactions and relationships, their emotional valence, and the contexts in which they occur. The authors consider which theoretical modes have dominated different areas of social capital research, with a particular emphasis on what the implications have been for understanding inequality. They then suggest promising directions for formalist and relationalist approaches to social capital and give special attention to combinations that contribute to understanding the existence and trajectory of population-level differences in the accumulation and deployment of social capital.
Keywords: Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781802202373.00009 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:21002_2
Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com
Access Statistics for this chapter
More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().