Social capital in this sense is
closely related to political participation
in the conventional sense, but
these terms are not synonymous.
Political participation refers to our
relations with political institutions.
Social capital refers to our relations
with one another. Sending a check
to a PAC is an act of political participation,
but it does not embody
or create social capital. Bowling in
a league or having coffee with a
friend embodies and creates social
capital, though these are not acts of
political participation. (A grassroots
political movement or a traditional
urban machine is a social capitalintensive
form of political participation.)
I use the term "civic engagement"
to refer to people's
connections