Structural Analysis of Social Capital: Institution, Relations, and Order1

Current studies on social capital are both broad and in-depth in terms of contents and forms as well. The structure among various forms, however, seems to be a sort of in disorder, without establishing a institution with a relatively clear dividing line. This paper believes that social capital doesn’t include microscopic forms of trust, norm, and network, etc only. We, through in-depth studies from macro-structure aspect, could discover that social capital in fact exists in three broader fields of social institution, social relations, and social order. Social institution, social relations, and social order are essentially the initial state of social capital. Every specific form of social capital is unexceptionally the result of interrelation and interaction among these three. Every single form of social capital doesn’t purely belong to a certain field; it closely relates to other fields instead. And it even is the combination of multiple-form social capital. Both structural and resource natures of social capital thread together instead of being discrete.