P1: H September 25, 199810:31Annual ReviewsAR064-00SO24-FrontisP Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1998.24:1-24. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Sun Yat-Sen University Library on 02/23/09. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1998. 24:124 Copyright 1998 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved SOCIAL CAPITAL: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology Alejandro Portes Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 KEY WORDS: social control, family support, networks, sociability ABSTRACT Thispaperreviewstheoriginsanddefinitionsofsocialcapitalinthewritings ofBourdieu,Loury,andColeman,amongotherauthors.Itdistinguishesfour sources of social capital and examines their dynamics. Applications of the concept in the sociological literature emphasize its role in social control, in familysupport,andinbenefitsmediatedbyextrafamilialnetworks.Iprovide examples of each of these positive functions. Negative consequences of the same processes also deserve attention for a balanced picture of the forces at play. I review four such consequences and illustrate them with relevant ex- amples. Recent writings on social capital have extended the concept from an individual asset to a feature of communities and even nations. The final sec- tions describe this conceptual stretch and examine its limitations. I argue that, as shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability, social capital has a definite place in sociological theory. However, excessive extensions of the concept may jeopardize its heuristic value. Alejandro Portes: Biographical Sketch Alejandro Portes is professor of sociology at Princeton University and faculty associate of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs. He for- merly taught at Johns Hopkins where he held the John Dewey Chair in Arts and Sciences, Duke University, and the University of Texas-Austin. In 1997 he held the Emilio Bacardi distinguished professorship at the University of Miami.InthesameyearhewaselectedpresidentoftheAmericanSociologi- calAssociation.BorninHavana,Cuba,hecametotheUnitedStatesin1960. He was educated at the University of Havana, Catholic University of Argen- tina, and Creighton University. He received his MA and PhD from the Uni- versity of Wisconsin-Madison. 0360-0572/98/0815-0001$08.00 1 Annu. Rev. Sociol. 1998.24:1-24. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Sun Yat-Sen University Library on 02/23/09. For personal use only. Portes is the author of some 200 articles and chapters on national devel- opment, international migration, Latin American and Caribbean urbaniza- tion, and economic sociology. His most recent books include City on the Edge, the Transformation of Miami (winner of the Robert Park award for best book in urban sociology and of the Anthony Leeds award for best book in urban anthropology in 1995); The New Second Generation (Russell Sage Foundation 1996); Caribbean Cities (Johns Hopkins University Press); and Immigrant America, a Portrait. The latter book was designated as a centen- nial publication by the University of California Press. It was originally pub- lished in 1990; the second edition, updated and containing new chapters on American immigration policy and the new second generation, was published in 1996. Introduction During recent years, the concept of social capital has become one of the most popular exports from sociological theory into everyday language. Dissemi- nated by a number of policy-oriented journals and general circulation maga- zines, social capital has evolved into something of a cure-all for the maladies affecting society at home and abroad. Like other sociological concepts that have traveled a similar path, the original meaning of the term and its heuristic value are being put to severe tests by these increasingly diverse applications. As in the case of those earlier concepts, the point is approaching at which so- cial capital comes to be applied to so many events and in so many different contexts as to lose any distinct meaning. Despite its current popularity, the term does not embody any idea really new tosociologists.Thatinvolvementandparticipationingroupscanhavepositive consequences for the individual and the community is a staple notion, dating back to Durkheims emphasis on group life as an antidote to anomie and self- destructionandtoMarxsdistinctionbetweenanatomizedclass-in-itselfanda mobilized and effective class-for-itself. In this sense, the term social capital simply recaptures an insight present since the very beginnings of the disci- pline. Tracing the intellectual background of the concept into classical times wouldbetantamounttorevisitingsociologysmajornineteenthcenturysources. That exercise would not reveal, however, why this idea has caught on in recent yearsorwhyanunusualbaggageofpolicyimplicationshasbeenheapedonit. The novelty and heuristic power of social capital come from two sources. First, the concept focuses attention on the positive consequences of sociabilit