The Social Capital Foundation

The Social Capital Foundation (TSCF) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) that pursues the promotion of social capital and social cohesion. Created in late 2002 by Dr Patrick Hunout, it is based in Brussels. TSCF is international and focuses particularly on the current developments in the industrial countries. The profiles of its members are extremely diverse. Funded with membership, conference and expertise fees, it is completely independent. It is a not a grant-making Foundation.

Social capital is a key concept in political science, sociology, social psychology, economics, and organizational behaviour. It has been theorized about by a long list of scholars, from Emile Durkheim to Ferdinand Tönnies, Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Putnam, Robert Bellah, Francis Fukuyama, Patrick Hunout and others. Some trace the modern usage of the term to L.J. (Lyda Judson) Hanifan in her discussions of rural school community centres (Hanifan 1916,1920). Hanifan was particularly concerned with the cultivation of good will, fellowship, sympathy and social intercourse among those that "make up a social unit". Jane Jacobs's book on "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961) suggested the importance of the unseen fiber that holds successful communities together, consisting in networks of trust and norms of reciprocity that have emerged over time, which promote the process of voluntary exchange, and that large-scale development projects run the risk of wiping out (Jacobs called this fiber "social capital", making her perhaps the first to coin the term - ibid., p. 138). The illustrious sociologist Pierre Bourdieu showed in 1972 and 1984 that “social” capital has to be distinguished from other sorts of capital, such as “economic” and “cultural” capital. James Coleman developed and popularized the concept. In the late 1990s, the concept became respectable, with the World Bank devoting a research program to it and with its currency in Robert Putnam's 2000 book,"Bowling Alone, The Decline and Revival of the American Community".

TSCF's purpose

TSCF's approach to "social capital" is quite distinct from other, more socio-economic approaches in which the term "capital" approaches some of its conventional economic meanings.

TSCF promotes social capital defined as a set of mental dispositions and attitudes favoring cooperative behaviors within society.

The first assumption on which this definition is based is that social capital must not be mixed up with its manifestations. Thus, social capital does not consist in social networks, but in a disposition to generate and maintain congenial relationships. It does not consist in good neighborhood, but in openness to pacific coexistence and reciprocity based on a concept of belonging. It does not consist in running negotiations, but in the shared compromise-readiness and sense of the common good that make them succeed. It does not consist in trust, but in the predictability and good faith necessary to produce it.

The second assumption is that this disposition is collectivistic. It is not an individual capacity to build networks that is the most important for creating social capital but a collective and reciprocal disposition to welcome, create and maintain social connections - without which my individual efforts to create such connections may well remain vain.

In that sense, The Social Capital Foundation's definition of social capital can be regarded as a semantic equivalent to the community spirit. TSCF's approach is close to the one developed by Amitai Etzioni and the Communitarian Network, although the concerns raised by the erosion of community trace back to diverse figures in early modern sociology such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim or the Chicago School of Sociology, while European ethnology, culturalism and jungism also insisted on the existence of a common soul.

TSCF promotes social capital through socio-economic research, publications, and events. The Foundation sets up international conferences on a regular basis. While research and knowledge add verified facts to the debate, social interaction contributes to further dissemination and awareness around the Foundation's approach.

Patrick Hunout and the Tripartite Model of Societal Change

Patrick Hunout, a Franco-Belgian researcher and policymaker, created in 1999 The International Scope Review and in 2002 The Social Capital Foundation. His theoretical filiation is both in the sociology of Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies and in the more recent contribution of social psychology research. A former stage of his work had shown that judicial decisionmaking is only possible to the extent where judges use, beyond the formal legal provisions, impersonal and universal values as decision principles -to name these, he coined the term of "global axiological space" (1985, 1990).

His later work (1995, 1996, 2003, 2004) explored the formation of what he called a "New Leviathan", around the hypothesis that the upper class of society seeks to build a new order based on less equality and less democracy. His approach, in the form of a structural model that can evoke the analyses of Michel Foucault, suggests that, contrary to a common view, the strategies carried forward by the New Leviathan link intimately the economic, ethnic, and interpersonal fields. These strategies consist in developing economic flexibility and precariousness, promoting migrations and a multiethnic society, and pushing forward individualist,hedonist and consumerist values. In a last resort, they design a weak society, enslaved to market values and governmental controls rendered necessary by the increasing incapacity of an atomized social body to manage itself. The strategies carried forward by the ruling class explain most contemporary difficulties; if they would be inverted, a huge improvement would follow.

His collectivistic, communitarian inspiration reemerges when he suggests, to counter the strategies of New Leviathan, policies developing a democratic middle-class centered society, promoting an equitable share of wealth, protecting cultural identity against mass migrations, and strengthening shared values within the social body. These orientations are at the heart of the action of The Social Capital Foundation.

The International Scope Review

TSCF publishes The International Scope Review (TISR), an international academic journal that releases multidisciplinary research on the contemporary transformations taking place in the industrial countries. The Review publishes papers that design alternative approaches to improve our collective ability to overcome the contemporary challenges.

By linking three fields: economic relationships, interethnic relationships and interpersonal relationships, TISR attempts to offer a global understanding of the changes in society and the economy. Created in 1999, the journal has delivered 14 issues so far, bearing on multiple societal issues such as the weakening of the social bond in the developed countries, the definition and measurement of social capital, the links between suicide and individualism, the emergence of the new religions, and the contemporary crisis of the family link, - but also on sociopolitical issues such as the real objectives of European integration, the implications of mass immigration for the Western countries, the possible development of an organized civil society, tax morale and social justice.

Submissions are peer refereed on the basis of an original in-house evaluation methodology. This methodology is based on weighted criteria giving importance to both scientific quality and communication quality, which are not seen as contradictory, on the opposite. The evaluation procedure is double-blind and is run by at least two referees, one being an expert of the field/discipline of the paper submitted, the other being a general reader so as to test acceptability by the wider public. The values of the Review are intellectual independence, methodological rigor and respect to the authors.

Consolidating society through social capital

The response of The Social Capital Foundation to the weakening of the social bond, as expressed in various issues of The International Scope Review (1999, 2003, 2004, 2005), consists in expanding social capital.

TSCF's orientation emphasizes:

• The social dimension of the market economy: tempering the effects of the free market on precariousness and social fragility, not through bureaucratic controls, but through the development of "socially responsible corporate policies", of the non-profit economy sector and of a partnership system between employers and employees in the spirit of what has been called "Rhineland capitalism",

• The pivotal role of the middle class in modern society: promoting a society with a large, educated and wealthy middle-class able to play a responsive role in the settlement of issues, in order to favor democratic life, which may have implications for revenues, wage and tax policies, as well as for education and learning practices.

• The necessity for improvement of social cooperation and participation: on the basis of the above, a stronger society would involve a massive reduction in the role of the governments, compensated by a raise in the role of the organized civil society (NGOs and independent organizations). Civic participation in the judicial and governmental institutions would be developed and the legal and tax systems would be democratized.

• The preservation of cultural identity for community integration: migration policies would be restricted and third world socio-economic development policies would take over from them, while the attribution of nationality would be submitted to community approval. Thus TSCF suggested that "mass immigration helps maintain the older systems of governance. The main objective of this policy rapidly became to reconstruct a new working class, a class that was disappearing since the XIXth century, not only in terms of financial resource level but also in terms of submission to authority and social stratification" (Peace and Conflict Monitor, 09/16/2003).

• Finally, raising the level of social capital would have implications for a wide range of behaviors on a daily basis, such as showing a lesser individualism, developing compromise-readiness, being critical to consumption values, as well as reintroducing congeniality and civility in the family, the neighborhood and the interpersonal relationships so as to learn again to live together.

TSCF International Conferences

TSCF International Conferences include:

• The 2004 Brussels conference on the Future of Family (Brussels, May 11–13, 2004, "The Future of Family: Recomposition or Decomposition?"),

• The 2005 Malta I conference on Social Capital (Buggiba, September 20–22, 2005, "Social Capital, Definition, Measurement, Applications"),

• The 2008 Malta II conference on Social Inclusion (Buggiba, September 19–22, 2008, "Perspectives on Social Capital and Social Inclusion").

While the 2004 conference has shown a vacillation of the family in the Western countries, it also suggested that family as social structure may have a brighter future if well inserted into a strong wider community. Wherever family is open the wider community, this proves better for the consolidation of society and economic development, as shown by the work of Putnam, Leonardi and Nanetti on Northern vs. Southern Italy. Reciprocally, a strong sense of community in the wider society helps the formation and maintenance of solid family links. The 2005 conference has explored the issues around the definition and measurement of social capital and has shown the crucial importance of social capital for social cohesion. The 2008 conference has revolved around issues of economic development and civic engagement; it suggested ways to make public policies more efficient by orienting them to the creation of social capital.

Conference participants are policymakers, academicians, social workers, development professionals, and community leaders. The concept of the TSCF conferences is open to diverse types of participants - in general, to all those who want to understand better the world in which they live.

Useful links

Official website of The Social Capital Foundation

The International Scope Review

Brussels blog in French