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Beyond Social Capital pp 107–143Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Bonding, Bridging, and Constricting

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict ((PSCAC))

Abstract

Given the nature of government policy and funding for victim support groups, combined with the types of leaders identified in Chap. 4, it should come as no surprise that victim groups were predominantly engaged in bonding, rather than bridging social capital. While around 80 % of groups were engaged in either functional or dysfunctional bonding, only around 20 % built bridging forms of social capital. In this chapter, I will reveal the ways in which victim support groups bonded, bridged, and constricted. Significantly, leadership and trust were crucial determinants of whether bonding, bridging, or constriction occurred. However, government policy, as I have already argued, also played an important role in shaping social capital in victim support groups. Thus, I begin with an investigation of Northern Ireland’s social capital policy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Robert Putnam, for example, was a well-known public policy advisor to President Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. Clinton and his advisors played a role in Northern Ireland’s peace process and some of the policies that followed the peace process. Additionally, Anthony Giddens (1998) is recognized as having adopted social capital in his conception of the Third Way, which has also shaped policy in the UK and elsewhere. These coincidences could provide an explanation for the infiltration of social capital in the policy context of Northern Ireland.

  2. 2.

    In May 2012, the Alliance Party concluded that they could not continue working with other members of the five-party working group because of disagreements between the two main parties and their goal of settling for the “lowest common denominator” approach to community relations (David Ford, 31 May 2012, Alliance Party website accessed at: http://allianceparty.org/article/2012/006512/belfast-telegraph-article-by-david-ford-on-a-shared-future).

  3. 3.

    The Victims and Survivors Service’s Victims Support Programme has now replaced all of the government-funded grants, though at the time the research was conducted, victim groups were still receiving funding from the CRC, NIMF, and other funders.

  4. 4.

    See, for example, The Junction’s training opportunities in storytelling facilitation: http://thejunction-ni.org/index.php/course.

  5. 5.

    See McLaughlin (2009). Unheard Voices. Northern Ireland: WAVE; Towards Understanding and Healing, 2008. Towards Understanding and Healing Information. YES! Publications.

  6. 6.

    For example, the utilization of qualitative methods in this study versus quantitative measurements in Putnam’s study.

  7. 7.

    In this case, the in-group would be people from the same religious background.

  8. 8.

    Colum is referring to the so-called peace walls or interfaces that separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods throughout much of Belfast.

  9. 9.

    In part, as a result of groups splintering and feeling that others outside the group could not be trusted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peace and Justice Studies Program, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA

    Laura K. Graham

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Graham, L.K. (2016). Bonding, Bridging, and Constricting. In: Beyond Social Capital. Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137518675_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137518675_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51866-8

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