Social Capital and Collective Efficacy: Resource and Operating Tools of Community Social Control

Current popularity of social capital and collective efficacy theories in community research has presented some challenges related to definition, measurement, and ontological issues that need to be addressed to facilitate future research. Although scholars have made efforts to clarify the differences between social capital and collective efficacy, the two concepts have been either used interchangeably or presented as competing ideas. The paper, through the review of relevant literatures, addresses some of these issues and argues that social capital and collective efficacy are partly overlapping and complementary to one another with regards to establishing and sustaining community social control. When social capital is activated in the specific direction to develop social control, collective efficacy plays an important role by providing a connection and activating the resource of social capital for the specific goal of safety. Social capital alone cannot guarantee safety, but collective efficacy cannot exist in absence of social capital.