Bridging Social Capital and Collective Action: Evidence from the Concord Project.

Abstract Bridging Social Capital and An Investment Theory of Collective Action: Evidence from The Concord Project Barbara J. Nelson Linda Kaboolian Kathryn A. Carver The question we posed in our research was how do cross-community organizations with their potential to generate bridging social capital form? More specifically, how do concord organizations start against the odds of daily conflict among racial, ethnic, and religious groups defined by too much particularistic history and too little common future? Concord organizations bring together people with fundamentally opposing views or identities for the purpose of promoting civil society while recognizing group differences. After investigating over 100 concord organizations in the US, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Palestinian and Israeli groups working in the US, our answer is that concord organizations form because potential collective actors see their actions as worthy long-term investments rather than short-term high prices. They are primarily investors rather than consumers. Each person who decides to work to create a concord organization calculates a net pro-social interest rate. This return on investment includes consideration of the danger, the pleasures, the obstacles, the immediate costs, the opportunity costs, and the benefits of action. In particular, investors are attentive to the opportunity costs of the status quo, that is, of not acting, which they considered to have a high and enduring price. Collective action to create concord organizations is an example of thick rationality, the kind of considerations made by people embedded in social systems with multiple personal, organizational, and communal values. Becoming an investor, especially with people who belong to disfavored groups, requires a special micromobilizing frame?a balancing frame. This frame balances an overarching shared value with the enduring opposing values of participants. Because concord organizations never solve the conflicts of values they embody, they are always to some extent in formation mode. Our research determined the ten design principles and necessary practices that allow a balancing frame to endure. Without adherence to principles and practices, antagonistic group values overwhelm shared values, and the organization fails to form or to continue to function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]