From Participatory Reform to Social Capital: Micro‐Motives and the Macro‐Structure of Civil Society Networks

• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Author: Christopher Weare,Juliet Ann Musso
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12309
• Date: 01 January 2015

Juliet Ann Musso is associate professor

and Houston Flournoy Professor of State

Government in the Sol Price School of

Public Policy at the University of Southern

California. She has expertise in state and

local government and has researched civic

engagement and local democratic reform,

intergovernmental policy and management,

budgeting, and performance management.

She holds master’s and doctoral degrees

in public policy from the University of

California, Berkeley.

E-mail: musso@usc.edu

Christopher Weare is research associ-

ate professor in the Sol Price School of

Public Policy at the University of Southern

California. His most recent research projects

have focused on the applications of social

network analysis to examine the structure

and functioning of civil society. He received

a bachelor’s degree in government from

Harvard University and master’s and

doctoral degrees in public policy from the

University of California, Berkeley.

E-mail: weare@usc.edu

150 Public Administration Review • January | February 2015

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 75, Iss. 1, pp. 150–164. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12309.

Juliet Ann Musso

Christopher Weare

University of Southern California

Abstract: Although a wide-ranging literature explores the favorable ef‌f ects of social capital, it is only relatively recently

that systematic attention has been directed to the manner in which social networks emerge and the consequent impli-

cations for civic engagement and collaborative governance.  is article employs advanced social network statistical

models to examine civic network emergence following a participatory reform in Los Angeles. Findings suggest that

the reform fostered a number of favorable network attributes supportive of democratic participation. At the same

time, subtle but ubiquitous ef‌f ects of socioeconomic sorting had the unintended and undesirable ef‌f ect of elevating

higher- status actors within the emergent civic network.  ese f‌i ndings suggest that macro-level policy interventions are

required to foster the development of ties that promote cross-talk among socioeconomically distinct community groups.

Practitioner Points

• Participatory reforms such as community councils create social and political networks by changing the

opportunities and incentives for individuals to connect with one another.

• Individual motivations interact with emergent social relationships and, over time, shape the ultimate

character of the network.

• In Los Angeles, despite severe obstacles to engagement, the creation of a neighborhood council system

ultimately resulted in a participatory network that was relatively open and inclusionary.

• Individual motivations to cluster with like individuals appear to limit the tendency of Los Angeles

neighborhood councils to interact with communities that dif‌f er from them.

• To counter the ef‌f ects of socioeconomic sorting, designers of participatory reforms should encourage

“cross-talk” among diverse community organizations through such programs as regional forums and

incentives for inter-regional cooperation.

legislative and administrative decisions (past and

future) to understand more fully their role in

building or depleting our nation’s stock of social

capital.

—Robert Putnam, 2005

Separated by almost a century, Mary Parker

Follett and Robert Putnam articulate an

enduring focus on the need to create interme-

diary institutions that support civic discourse and

strengthen engagement of ordinary citizens with elite

decision makers. Such institutional civic innovations

arguably create social capital in the form of networks

that support collective action, promote civic culture,

and facilitate “coming to public judgment” that moves

beyond mass opinion to communicate reasoned

compromises to decision makers (Fung 2004; Putnam

2000; Yankelovitch 1991). Although a wide-ranging

From Participatory Reform to Social Capital: Micro-Motives

and the Macro-Structure of Civil Society Networks

[E]very neighborhood must be organized; the

neighborhood groups must then be integrated,

through larger intermediary groups, into a true

state. Neither our cities nor our states can ever be

properly administered until representatives from

neighborhood groups meet to discuss and thereby

to correlate the needs of all parts of the city, of all

parts of the state.

—Mary Parker Follett, 1918

Government and elected of‌f‌i cials must help revive

and support intermediary institutions linking

citizens to the state; . . . provide incentives for

citizens to discuss how to make public agencies

work better; . . . foster innovative programs to

reward civic participation and make it habit-

forming; f‌i nance local ef‌f orts to use technology for

networking and community building; and review