Social capital and local development : an application of the social network analysis to the XI and XVI boroughs of Rome

Abstract

This work develops a network measure of social capital based on relationships between social actors of small communities and analyzes its potentiality in the assessment of social capital. The notion of social capital is tackled in terms of social relationships and networks between the actors; instead of concentration on the traditional measures of social capital as the associative density (Putnam, Leonardi, Nanetti and Pavoncello, 1983; Putnam, Leonardi and Nanetti, 1993; Putnam,1995) and the indices of trust obtained from general surveys (WVS by Inglehart, Basáñez, Díez-Medrazo, Halman and Luijkx 2004), this approach focuses on a meso level of analysis. The methodological contribution comes from the application of the social network analysis to the social capital assessment in the field of economics; through a questionnaire submitted to a sample of associations of the third sectors operating in two different boroughs of Rome, the social networks of the two communities has been drawn and analysed. In this way, a different conception and interpretation of social capital can arise from networks, giving new information about its stock and structure.