Social capital has done much of its scholarly and policy work through its status as an “essentially contested concept” (Gallie 1956).4 That is, its coherence and useful- ness rests not on a clear consensus regarding its definition and measurement, but— like culture, power, and the rule of law—on its capacity to draw attention to salient features of the social and political world that are of significance in their own right and are valued for different aspects of everyday life (such as education, health, and crime prevention). The very fact that social capital has been used by everyone from Marxists to rational choice theorists to network scholars and structural functional- ists means that a universally agreed-upon rendering cannot emerge. While vigorous debate is to be encouraged and expected, social capital is fated to be as controversial as the broader theoretical and epistemological debates in which it is inherently embedded.