Linking Indigenous Social Capital to a Global Economy

(80% of them were college graduates compared to 40% in the other viable community), leaders
were connected to one another through formal voluntary associations and community
development boards. Finally, it should be noted that the same levels of community viability as
well as the differences in paths toward bridging social capital ties between leaders were found in
a follow up study six years later.³⁶

In short, the rural community viability study illustrates that it is possible to create
bridging ties in different ways and that a "one size fits all" model is neither necessary nor
desirable. The most difficult issue, and the one most neglected in discussions of social capital,
however, is the role of power and governmental public policy decisions on the development of
institutional arrangements that will provide advantages to the indigenous social capital of one
group versus another.

Power, Public Policy and Institutional Arrangements
for Building Bridging Social Capital

In an earlier section, we argued that the difficulties a group faces in developing bridging
social capital is analogous to the problem of competition in the marketplace. These problems, of
course, are oftentimes due, to a greater or lesser extent, to difficulties inherent in a group's
cultural traditions that have created an institutional environment that creates a barrier to the
development of bridging ties. At the same time, however, the failure of a group to compete in
the social capital marketplace may be due, in part at least, to institutional arrangements that
substantially weaken what otherwise could be a competitive advantage of that group's indigenous
social capital. A classic example of this is the impact of the municipal reform movement on the
value of indigenous ethnic immigrant social capital.

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