Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital (Anthem Studies in Development and Globalization)

The idea of social capital – meaning most simply put social connections – was unheard of outside a small circle of sociologists until very recently. Now it is proclaimed by the World Bank to be the missing link in international development and has become the subject of a flurry of books and research papers. Harriss asks why this notion should have taken off in the dramatic way that it has done and finds in its uses by the World Bank the attempt systematically to obscure class relations and power.