Exploring the Impact of Community and Organizational Social Capital on Government Performance

• Published date: 01 December 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912910381649
• Author: Rhys Andrews
• Date: 01 December 2011

Political Research Quarterly

64(4) 938 –949

© 2011 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912910381649

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Exploring the Impact of Community

and Organizational Social Capital

on Government Performance:

Evidence from England

Rhys Andrews1

Abstract

Civic-republican theories of democracy assume high levels of social capital within the community and within public

bureaucracies will be associated with better government performance. This article tests these assumptions by analyzing

the impact of community and organizational social capital on the achievements of English local governments. The

interdependence between social capital and performance is modeled using a range of primary and secondary data. The

statistical results suggest that both community and organizational social capital are positively related to government

performance. However, further analysis revealed that the combined effects of these two forms of social capital are not

beneficial for performance.

Keywords

social capital, community, organization, government performance

In recent years, political science has contained wide-

ranging debate about social capital and government perfor-

mance (see Boix and Posner 1998; Putnam 2000; Tavits

2006). Civic-republican theories of democracy suggest

that community organizational life, political engagement,

and trust among citizens create positive externalities for

governments seeking to carry out core bureaucratic tasks

(Putnam 1993, 2000). By enabling citizens to overcome

collective action problems associated with influencing

policy decisions, community social capital can lead to

greater government responsiveness and thereby improved

performance. Moreover, the social capital inherent in the

social relations within an organization can also be regarded

as a potentially critical asset in maximizing bureaucratic

effectiveness (Langbein and Jorstad 2004). Where there

are high levels of collaboration and good will among orga-

nization members, governments may be able to reduce

their reliance on cumbersome monitoring procedures,

thereby lowering the transaction costs associated with

leveraging organizational effort and resources (Leana and

Van Buren 1999; Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998).

A small but growing number of empirical studies have

examined community social capital and government per-

formance (e.g., Knack 2002; Tavits 2006), but almost none

have considered the role of organizational social capital (for

a notable exception see Cusack 1999). Moreover, to date,

scant research has explored the impact of community and

organizational social capital on government performance

within the same study, despite the central place of both

aspects in theoretical accounts of the social capital-

governmen t performance relationship (see especially Boix

and Posner 1998) and recent suggestions that it is important

to unravel their separate and combined effects (Tavits

2006). Thus, although interest in the social capital–perfor-

mance relationship grows apace, a number of important

empirical questions remain underexplored. Is community

or organizational social capital most conducive to better

performance? Are the effects of community and organiza-

tional social capital stronger in combination or separately?

By applying a statistical model of community and orga-

nizational social capital to the performance of English

local governments, this article advances research on the

relationship between social capital and government perfor-

mance by moving beyond the existing focus on the salience

1Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Corresponding Author:

Rhys Andrews, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK,

CF10 3EU

Email: AndrewsR4@cardiff.ac.uk