Mapping and measuring social capital through assessment of collective action to conserve and develop watersheds in Rajasthan, India

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511492600.005

3 - Mapping and measuring social capital through assessment of collective action to conserve and develop watersheds in Rajasthan, India

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009

Anirudh Krishna and

Norman Uphoff

Edited by

Christiaan Grootaert and

Thierry van Bastelaer

Foreword by

Robert Puttnam

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Anirudh Krishna: Affiliation:
Teacher Public policy and political science departments, Duke University
Norman Uphoff: Affiliation:
Director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture, and Development and Professor of Government and International Agriculture Cornell University
Christiaan Grootaert: Affiliation:
The World Bank
Thierry van Bastelaer: Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park

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Summary

Social capital is a popular current concept in the development literature and in development agencies. But is it real enough to be measured in the field and validated by achievement of desired outcomes of development programs? Is it something that can be purposefully increased? This chapter reports on the observed relationships between social capital measures and development outcomes in sixty-four villages in the Indian State of Rajasthan. Since 1991 these villages have participated in a watershed conservation and development program funded by the Indian government and the World Bank. The villages provide an empirical basis for evaluating whether social capital can be identified and measured quantitatively.

The database includes interviews with 2,397 individuals, split about evenly between men and women; sixty-four focus group sessions with village leaders and elected representatives; and relevant village- and household-level data obtained from official records. By classifying the villages' performance in restoring their degraded or vulnerable common lands through collective action as having been high, medium, or low, we assess whether certain social-structural or cognitive variables associated with social capital can explain differences in the measured manifestations of mutually beneficial collective action – the benefit flow we associate with and expect to observe from the asset of social capital.

We find that an index of social capital variables is positively and consistently correlated with superior development outcomes, both in watershed conservation and in cooperative development activities more generally.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Role of Social Capital in Development
An Empirical Assessment
, pp. 85 - 124

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492600.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2002

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