What is "Social Capital" in politics?

Answer 1

Social capital is a concept with a variety of inter-related definitions, based on the value of social networks.

While various aspects of the concept have been approached by all social science fields, some trace the modern usage of the term to Jane Jacobs in the 1960s. However, she did not explicitly define a term social capital but used it in an article with a reference to the value of networks. The first cohesive exposition of the term was by Pierre Bourdieu in 1972 (though clear formulation in his work can be traced to 1984), and subsequently picked up initially by James Coleman and then others. For a time in the late 1990s, the concept was highly fashionable, with the World Bank devoting a research programme to it, and the concept achieving public awareness through Robert Putnam's 2000 book, Bowling Alone