A literature analysis of social capital’s transnational diffusion in Chinese sociology

Abstract

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Since China began its reconstruction of sociology as an academic discipline in 1979, a number of Western sociological concepts have entered the field of Chinese sociology. This study aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of the literature pertaining to the sociological concept of ‘social capital,’ one among these newly imported popular constructs over the past several decades, to assess how and why the concept of ‘social capital’ has been ‘put to use’ by Chinese sociologists. Information on a series of variables was extracted after analyzing 118 articles that have focused on ‘social capital,’ written by Chinese sociologist and published between 2000 and 2011. The analysis results indicated an accelerated popularity of ‘social capital’ in Chinese sociological publications over this time period. In addition, the early adopters of ‘social capital’ among Chinese sociologists privileged the network domain but marginalized the social trust and civic participation domain of the concept, while recent years have witnessed a gradual embrace of the social trust and civic participation domains in Chinese sociologists’ writings. The trajectory of the cross-cultural encounter of ‘social capital’ is discussed in terms of China’s institutional context for the diffusion of this concept.

Keywords

Chinese sociology concept of ‘social capital’diffusion

Introduction

China’s reform and opening in 1978 ushered in a new era for Chinese social sciences, which has been marked with renewed vigor of introducing Western sociological doctrines to guide the teaching and research of sociology in China (Cheng and So, 1993; Deng, 2010). Due to the Western hegemony in social sciences, the global South’s experiences have been marginalized (Keim, 2008). It is challenging for Chinese sociologists to analyze the social realities in their specific national cultural context with the tools which are essentially produced in the global North (Keim, 2008; Sato, 2010). It is also a challenge for Chinese sociologists to borrow sociological concepts rooted in the Western cultural context while diffusing and disseminating the intellectual ideas of these concepts in their own specific national cultural context (Merle, 2004).

According to Bourdieu (1999), ideas circulate with some elements of their previous use but they always travel without the context of their production. They are (re)assembled in a variety of contexts whereby different social and institutional ‘peripheries’ are involved in the discursive process of (re)assembling (Bourdieu, 1999). Importing intellectual ideas from one national ‘field’ to another is ‘made up of a series of social operations’ (Bourdieu, 1999: 222), in which so many social factors are involved. The sense-making and the diffusion of the imported concepts and knowledge is a social process, which is profoundly influenced by the underlying national sociocultural context (Strang and Meyer, 1993). The sociocultural and institutional context in the destination nation may elevate the prominence and visibility of certain paradigms, theoretically and methodologically, while marginalizing others when the original intellectual ideas cross boundaries.

The introduction and transfer of Western sociological doctrines to the Chinese scholarly community, the diffusion of this knowledge translated from other cultural ‘fields’ particularly, was also by no means a chance occurrence. It is closely linked with the concurrent social dynamics in China. An empirical analysis of Chinese sociologists’ citations and discussions of Western sociological theories may inform us of how Western general social theories are ‘put to use’ in China. Further, it may shed light on the dynamics of the potential transfer and circulation of social science knowledge, the possible inherent tensions as well as the possible alternatives to facilitate the knowledge diffusion.

The research presented in this article documents the diffusion of the concept ‘social capital,’ one of the most popular and widely appropriated concepts in many fields of social sciences globally (Portes, 1998), among Chinese sociologists between 2000¹ and 2011. Based on an examination of citations and discussions of the concept ‘social capital’ in journal articles by Chinese sociologists, this article tries to depict the trajectory of the transnational diffusion of ‘social capital’ among Chinese sociologist by analyzing (1) the transnational diffusion trajectory of ‘social capital’ in transitional China, (2) how the conceptual ideas of ‘social capital’ have been reflected and reshaped as they cross cultural boundaries and become embedded in China’s sociocultural contexts and intellectual paradigms, and (3) the concurrent social context that possibly underpins the diffusion trajectory of ‘social capital’ in current China. By China, this article mainly focuses on mainland China without referring to the Chinese special administrative regions (SARs) due to the fact that there exist many differences in the history and mission of sociology programs, the research focuses, and approaches between mainland China and Chinese SARs (Lee, 1987; Zhou and Pei, 1997), even though mainland China and Chinese SARs share the same cultural tradition.

‘Social capital’ in Western sociology

The term ‘social capital’ has been the focus of a variety of disciplines since the beginning of the 1990s (Portes, 1998). Although there are some variations both in its conceptualization and measurement in current sociological literature, there are mainly four streams of ‘social capital’, represented by the definition of Bourdieu (1986, 1993), Coleman (1988), Putnam (1993a), and Lin (2000, 2001) respectively (Adam and Roncevic, 2003; Fukuyama, 2002; Portes, 1998). These publications have been cited year after year and are still frequently cited again and again.

According to Bourdieu (1986: 248), social capital is ‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources that are linked to a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships.’ That is, social capital is the sum of the actual and potential resources that can be activated through membership in organizations and social networks. In Bourdieu’s theory, this form of capital is unequally distributed among individuals and groups in society (Portes, 1998).

Coleman (1988: S118) defined social capital by its function as ‘a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspects of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure.’ For Coleman, social capital functions as financial capital, physical capital, and human capital, but it is embedded in relations among persons. And there are three forms of social capital: obligations and expectations, information, and norms existing between and among social relations.

Evolving from his study about the necessary conditions for creating strong, responsive, and effective institutions in different regions in Italy, Putnam (1993a: 167) provided a third definition of social capital as ‘features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions.’ Putnam’s social capital emphasizes the vibrancy of associational life and an informed public at the community level. For Putnam (1993b), social capital is not only a ‘private good’ but also a ‘public good,’ which can be studied even at the national level.

Nan Lin (2000) argued that ‘who you know’ and ‘what you know’ make a difference in social life and they should be regarded as important ingredients of ‘social capital.’ Consequently Nan Lin has defined social capital as ‘valued resources embedded in a social structure that are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive actions’ (Lin, 2001: 29). For Lin, social capital is resources derived from one’s direct or indirect social ties.

Similarity between these definitions is evident – the mutual feature in them is that they define ‘social capital’ as a kind of social resource with ‘benefits accruing to individuals or families by virtue of their ties with others’ (Portes, 1998: 6), yet the variation in terms of the framework and emphasis in these definitions is also evident. That is, Putnam’s definition includes the feature of a community or a larger society and emphasizes the social trust and civic participation domain, whereas the ‘social capital’ of Bourdieu, Coleman, and Lin emphasizes the network-based resource domain and includes the meaning of an individual’s characteristics (Adam and Roncevic, 2003). Further, Bourdieu’s conceptualization is theoretically the most refined (Adam and Roncevic, 2003). But the American concepts developed by Coleman and Putnam became popular in the 1990s (Forsman, 2005). Putnam’s theoretical conceptualization is particularly the most popular, which has resulted in much more research than other three theorists (Adam and Roncevic, 2003; Forsman, 2005). Even with such variations, an increasing number of social scientists refer to social capital as the information, trust, and norms of reciprocity inhering in one’s social networks (Woolcock, 1998). And the following elements have always been measured as the core variables of social capital in empirical research: networks, trust, ease of cooperation, and civic participation (Portes, 1998). In terms of the unit of analysis, social capital has been measured at the individual level, then extended to community level and even to the national level (Adam and Roncevic, 2003; Portes, 1998). The existing literature has documented its role in social control, support, and benefits mediated by extra-familial networks (Portes, 1998).

Sociology as a discipline in China

Sociology as an academic discipline was introduced into China at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, with the joint contribution of Chinese scholars and the Western missionary scholars (Dai, 1993). As an ideology-relevant discipline, the development of sociology in China has been tightly linked with the concurrent political conditions of the Chinese society. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese government had a reorganization of its higher education institutions in 1952 and sociology was banished from all universities as a bourgeoisie discipline. In late 1978, the Chinese central government launched its epic policy of ‘Open Door and Reform.’ One task among others was to develop and advance China’s science and technology, including the development of social science (Huang, 2010). In line with these principles, the Chinese government decided to re-establish sociology as an academic discipline and consequently founded the Chinese Sociological Association (Li et al., 1987). After almost 30 years of stagnation, sociology as a discipline had finally attained its status in China. Sociology programs were established at first in five key prestigious universities in China in the early 1980s with the support from the Chinese central government (Li et al., 1987). Several social science academic journals, including Sociological Studies, Sociology and Social Research, and Society, were established and began to be issued in China in the 1980s (Li et al., 1987).

However, during that time there were still scholarly debates as to whether the sociological concepts and theoretical frameworks developed in capitalist Western cultural settings were appropriate for socialist China’s cultural settings (Dai, 1993; Hu and Li, 1981; Li et al., 1987). So the early period of re-establishment of sociology as a discipline in China was somewhat stagnated because of the controversies and concerns surrounding such debates. After 1992, as China further developed its economic privatization and marketization, Chinese sociologists were encouraged to observe and study the ongoing social dynamics through the theoretical frameworks from the West (Wu, 2009). Sociology as a discipline in China began to be institutionalized nationwide in higher educational institutions (Wu, 2009) since 2000, which ushered the real thriving period of sociology in China.

The reconstruction of sociology as a discipline in the early 1980s in China, however, was not an easy task after its 30-year stagnation. Systematic introduction of theories and methods from foreign countries was, thereafter, initiated as an important step to reconstruct and strengthen the discipline, together with cultivating a new generation of sociologists, and conducting social surveys (Huang, 2010). A long-range plan was formulated for translating and publishing theoretical works from foreign sociologists. The succeeding years since 1980 thus witnessed a proliferation of translated Western sociological doctrines in China together with empirical sociological research in the Chinese context (Li et al., 1987).

Translating sociological doctrines from the West has been one legacy of Chinese sociology. Even its early days of development as an academic discipline were marked by translating sociological works from the West. For example, the great Chinese scholar and translator during the Qing dynasty, Yan Fu, had translated part of Spencer’s The Study of Sociology and published his translated version in State News Letter of the Qing dynasty in China in 1898 (Li et al., 1987). The resuscitation of sociology in the 1980s and the subsequent decades were marked with renewed vigor in introducing Western sociological doctrines to guide the teaching and research of sociology in China (Cheng and So, 1993). A number of Western theoretical frameworks have been introduced to the Chinese sociology field since the 1980s and have become popular constructs in Chinese scholars’ scholarly writings (Huang, 2010). The sociological concept ‘social capital’ is one among these popular constructs.

Research methods in the current study

Periodicals are the primary source of information and the main channel for transmitting this sociological knowledge. Bibliometric analysis has been increasingly applied to reflect the research trends and understand the adoption and diffusion of knowledge. To provide an overview of the diffusion and appropriation of the concept ‘social capital’ among Chinese sociologists, this study offers a longitudinal and bibliometric analysis of scholarly publications on ‘social capital’ in social science academic journals in China between January 2000 and December 2011.

The notion of ‘social capital’ has proliferated over the last decade with scholars from many disciplines like economics, management, and political science, enthusiastically embracing the concept. To review all publications on this concept would entail an extensive multidisciplinary study. So this study has limited the bibliographic search to two key scholarly databases – Sociological Abstracts and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Sociological Abstracts is part of Cambridge Scientific Abstracts and includes literature in sociology and sociologically related disciplines in social and behavioral sciences from over 1800 journals. This database also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, and conference papers. China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) is the most comprehensive database of mainland Chinese journals in the world. CNKI contains more than 7200 journals covering such fields as science and technology, agriculture, medicine and hygiene, education, social science, philosophy and economics, and so on in mainland China starting from 1915. With the consideration that book chapters and dissertations would be hard to obtain and time consuming to read, the search in CNKI was just limited to peer-reviewed social science journals, including the key national social science journals, some provincial social science journals, and the social science edition of academic journals issued by universities in China.² The ‘General Search’ approach was used and ‘social capital’ and ‘China’ were entered as keywords for the Sociological Abstracts search; whereas ‘social capital’ and ‘shehui ziben’ (the Chinese translation of ‘social capital’) were entered as keywords for the CNKI search. The date of publication was specified as between 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2011. The search was conducted during July 2012. Altogether 118 peer-reviewed journal articles were generated from Sociological Abstracts and 248 from CNKI.

The titles and abstracts of all these 366 items generated from the database search were then manually examined to cross-check the potential duplication and confirm the relevance of the search results. Only those papers that were published in peer-reviewed academic journals by scholars in mainland China and contained ‘social capital’ in their title were selected, which resulted in a final list of 118 articles (article list is available upon request). These 118 scholarly articles comprised the final sample for analysis in this study and most of these articles are published in provincial social science journals, and the social science edition of academic journals issued by universities in China.

Next, each of these articles was further individually analyzed based on their citations of the concept ‘social capital.’ Specifically, each of these 118 articles was coded into different attributes of the following four variables: (1) the publication year; (2) the type of the research (review/commentary vs. empirical research); (3) main theoretical paradigm of social capital (i.e., social trust and civic participation paradigm or network-based resource paradigm); and (4) the unit of analysis of ‘social capital’ (i.e., individual, community,³ and nation). And the following coding schemes were used: ‘the publication year’ was a simple documentation of the specific year of publication of each article, ranging from 2000 to 2011. Based on the tradition and characteristics of sociological research in China (Zhou and Pei, 1997), ‘type of research’ was classified into two categories of ‘review or commentary’ and ‘empirical research.’ Articles that just provided critical evaluations, or explanation, or interpretation of the literature on ‘social capital,’ or pure theoretical discussions on ‘social capital’ were coded as ‘review or commentaries.’ Articles focusing on analysis of data, observations, and experiences were coded as ‘empirical studies.’ Following earlier literature on social capital studies (Adam and Roncevic, 2003; Forsman, 2005; Portes, 1998; Woolcock, 1998), two attributes were used to classify the dominant paradigm of ‘social capital’: ‘the network-based resources paradigm’ and ‘the social trust and civic participation paradigm.’ Those articles that focused on the network-based resources or benefits and have cited the definition by Bourdieu, Coleman, or Lin were coded as ‘the network-based resources paradigm’ whereas the articles that focused on trust and civic participation and have cited Putnam’s definition were categorized into ‘the social trust and civic participation paradigm.’ Further, three attributes were used to code the unit of analysis of ‘social capital’: individual, community, and nation. All 118 articles included in the final sample were manually coded according to this coding scheme and then the data were entered into SPSS 21. Count and percentage were generated for the assorted variables in SPSS to quantitatively analyze and track the general diffusion trend of ‘social capital’ into the Chinese sociological field over this time period.

Social capital’s rough diffusion trajectory and some concurrent social-political factors in China

The quantitative analysis results are summarized in Tables 1 –4 to depict the general trajectory of the diffusion of social capital into the field of Chinese sociology between 2000 and 2011. Overall, the rough trajectory of social capital’s transnational diffusion into Chinese sociology may be summarized as follows: Accelerated popularity of ‘social capital’ since 2000; gradual orientation toward concrete empirical research; a gradual shift from the early emphasis on the network-based resource paradigm toward a coexistence of the network-based resource paradigm and the trust and civic participation paradigm; and the level of the unit of analysis of social capital being expanded from the individual level, to community or village level, and gradually to the national level over this time period.

Table 1.

Number of publications on ‘social capital’ by year of publication.

Year	Count(N = 118)	% of sample
2000	1	1%
2001	5	4%
2002	3	3%
2003	6	5%
2004	7	6%
2005	5	4%
2006	8	7%
2007	8	7%
2008	7	6%
2009	12	10%
2010	17	14%
2011	39	33%
Total	118	100%

Table 2.

Type of publication on ‘social capital’ by year of publication.

Year	Article type
	Review or commentary	Empirical research
2000	1 (1%)	0 (0%)
2001	5 (4%)	0 (0%)
2002	2 (2%)	1(1%)
2003	5 (4%)	1 (1%)
2004	6 (5%)	1 (1%)
2005	3 (3%)	2 (2%)
2006	3 (3%)	5 (4%)
2007	7 (6%)	1 (1%)
2008	3 (3%)	4 (3%)
2009	9 (8%)	3 (3%)
2010	11 (9%)	6 (5%)
2011	23 (19%)	16 (13%)
Total	78 (67%)	40 (34%)

Table 3.

Dominant paradigm of ‘social capital’ by year of publication.

Year	Dominant paradigm
Year	Network resources	Trust and civic participation
2000	1 (1%)	0 (0%)
2001	3 (3%)	2 (2%)
2002	2 (2%)	1 (1%)
2003	3 (3%)	3 (2%)
2004	6 (5%)	1 (1%)
2005	2 (2%)	3 (3%)
2006	4 (3%)	4 (3%)
2007	1 (1%)	7 (6%)
2008	2 (2%)	5 (4%)
2009	2 (2%)	10 (8%)
2010	8 (7%)	9 (7%)
2011	18 (15%)	21 (18%)
Total	52 (44%)	66 (56%)

Table 4.

Unit of analysis of ‘social capital’ by year of publication.

Year	Unit of analysis
Year	Individual	Community	Nation
2000	1(1%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
2001	3 (3%)	2 (2%)	0 (0%)
2002	2 (2%)	1 (1%)	0 (0%)
2003	4 (4%)	1 (1%)	1 (1%)
2004	6 (5%)	0 (0%)	1 (1%)
2005	2 (2%)	2 (2%)	1 (1%)
2006	4 (4%)	2 (2%)	1 (1%)
2007	11 (9%)	4 (4%)	3 (3%)
2008	2 (2%)	2 (2%)	3 (3%)
2009	4 (4%)	7 (6%)	1 (1%)
2010	7 (6%)	9 (8%)	1 (1%)
2011	10 (14%)	14 (13%)	6 (7%)
Total	56 (47%)	44 (37%)	18 (15%)

The first finding is that more and more Chinese sociological publications were using ‘social capital’ as a central construct. Table 1 presents the breakdown of the search output according to the year of publication and indicates a rapid increase over these 11 years from 2000 to 2011. It is clear that the ‘social capital’ concept was marked by an accelerated popularity among Chinese scholars since 2000. For example, only one article utilized ‘social capital’ in its title in 2000 whereas in 2011, 39 articles used ‘social capital’ in the title (Table 1).

Table 2 illustrates the variations of the type of research in the sampled publications over this time period. It indicates that the majority of sociological writings on ‘social capital’ during this period were reviews, commentaries, or pure theoretical discussions. Empirical studies accounted for a small number only. Among these 118 research articles on ‘social capital,’ 78 (66%) are commentary, or pure theoretical discussions about ‘social capital.’ Only 40 (34%) are empirical research. However, the ‘social capital’ literature in China has been marked by an increasing trend of empirical studies in recent years.

Tables 3 and 4 summarize the variations of the dominant theoretical paradigms of ‘social capital’ (network-based resource paradigm vs. social trust and civic participation paradigm) and the unit of analysis of ‘social capital’ (individual, village/community, and nation) over this period in these 118 articles respectively. Table 3 indicates that ‘social capital’ has experienced a rough trajectory from the early emphasis on the network-based resource paradigm to the later turn toward the social trust and civic participation paradigm and shows now a coexistence of the network-based resource and trust and civic participation paradigms in the Chinese sociology field. Table 4 further indicates that the unit of analysis of ‘social capital’ among Chinese sociological writings has been expanded from the individual, to community or village, and gradually to the national level over this time period.

The above-summarized diffusion trajectory trend of social capital in China since 2000 may be related to various academic reasons such as the Chinese central government’s initiative to facilitate academic excellence in China. The Chinese government initiated the nationwide Project 211 and Project 985 one after another to boost the vitality and reputation of universities and colleges in China since 1995. From 2000 more and more Chinese universities began to offer degree programs in sociology and more and more sociological articles began to get published (Huang, 2010; Wu, 2009). As is widely known, ranking enjoys much attention in the increasingly competitive academic context and citation is one of the most influential elements in academic ranking. The common evaluation criteria and comparison tools in ranking, however, are mainly formulated in the West (Alatas, 2003). The established Northern social science journals dominate the rankings. Pursuit of higher impact factors and increasing citations also means conforming to the paradigms operative in Northern countries (Burawoy, 2014). Bibliometric analyses that have been conducted on several subject databases, as well as on the interdisciplinary Web of Science database, show that there was a clear and sharp increase in social capital publications from the second half of the 1990s, particularly the concept developed by the American scholar Putnam (Forsman, 2005; Woolcock, 1998). The academic pursuit of publication, citation, and higher impact factors might have played a role in the changing dynamics of citing ‘social capital’ among Chinese scholars. In addition, the increasing international exchange in China’s academia community since the advent of ‘open door’ policies may also have had some influence on the ‘importation’ of this concept as well as the gradual shift in research themes. Promoting academia’s professional exchanges with the international scholarly community was initiated as a key step to boost academic excellence in China (Deng, 1993). A growing number of Chinese scholars have spent time abroad or have been trained at Western universities (Cao, 2008; Zweig et al., 2008). Their experiences and connections in their academic training may have promoted changes and shifts in research topics, theoretical orientations, and research methodologies.

Chinese sociology had been marked by a strong philosophical tradition of historical materialism and Chinese sociologists by tradition always actively involved themselves in policy discussion and consultation by writing commentaries or reviews (Zhou and Pei, 1997). During the mid-1980s, Chinese sociologists were encouraged to observe the ongoing social dynamics and several nationwide social survey projects such as ‘The Project of the Small Town’ and a 10-year household survey project were launched in China (Zhou and Pei, 1997). These large-scale research projects together with the further influences from the Western world, American sociology particularly, helped to expand Chinese sociology into a new arena of research and Chinese sociology has since gradually shifted its orientation toward empirical research (Zhou and Pei, 1997). The increasing number of empirical ‘social capital’ publications by Chinese scholars also reflects the typical trend of general sociology research in transitional China. Such academic initiatives cannot be ignored in understanding the changing orientation of ‘social capital’ research among Chinese scholars. Yet, the broad social and cultural conditions operating in the wider social systems in China may have also played a role in influencing the orientations of these scholarly writings.

Since late 1970s Western humanities have poured into China and Marxist humanities have been gradually losing ground (Huang, 2010: 80), yet the legacy of traditional ideology lingered on. While Chinese scholars tried to assimilate as many nutrients as they could from the imported intellectual ideas, they were confronted by the challenge of adapting the imported ingredients to Chinese indigenous values to gain validity and legitimacy for the imported ideas to be circulated in the transitional Chinese society. The success of any imported and translated ideas in a different cultural setting depends on the degree of ‘fit’ between new ideas and the given cultural orientations of a collectivity (Kern, 2010). Even with some dissent among Chinese scholars, ‘social capital’ was readily translated and adopted by Chinese scholars and became an attractive concept in China. Some compatibilities between ‘social capital’ and the logic of guanxi in Chinese culture might have facilitated the successful landing of ‘social capital’ on Chinese shores, albeit partially.

Guanxi (pronounced ‘gwan-shee’), literally translated as ‘connection’ in English, is a product of specific Chinese cultural heritage that has existed and has been practiced for centuries and remains highly relevant to Chinese people today. Guanxi in the Chinese cultural setting literally means relationships and ties rooted in a common background and experience that facilitate mutual exchange of resources. Positive and instrumental roles of guanxi in China have been emphasized in the existing literature (Lin and Si, 2010; Luo, 2000).

There are some similarities between guanxi in Chinese society and ‘social capital.’ As Bourdieu himself wrote, one can give an intuitive idea of ‘social capital’ ‘by saying that it is what ordinary language calls connection’ (Bourdieu, 1993: 33). Guanxi in Chinese culture also emphasizes the importance of networks and the positive role of network-based resources (Lin and Si, 2010; Luo, 2000). Trust and reciprocity are emphasized as the glue of social exchange among members involved in the guanxi relation (Lin and Si, 2010; Luo, 2000). Further, mutual confidence and norms are shared between the members within the network itself (Lin and Si, 2010; Luo, 2000). The overlapping of ‘social capital’ and guanxi in Chinese culture is obvious (Gold et al., 2002).

Such overlapping also explains some of the confusion of equating ‘social capital’ with guanxi as well as the emphasis on the network-based resources paradigm of ‘social capital’ among Chinese scholars’ social capital publications in its early years of diffusion in China. The concept of ‘social capital’ began to enter the field of Chinese sociology in the late 1990s (Liu, 2004; Zhou and Wang, 2007). Some Chinese scholars found it easy to catch onto this new concept since the instrumental and positive roles of social ties as well as the trust and reciprocity between network members in ‘social capital’ readily echoed as a restatement of the ties and reciprocity in guanxi relations in Chinese culture. Particularly emphasized was the network resource paradigm of ‘social capital,’ which is built upon a network theoretical orientation (Lin, 2001) and draws on concepts from Granovetter’s social ties studies (Granovetter, 1973). There was heated discussion, however, as to whether ‘social capital’ could be equated with guanxi. For example, there were articles arguing that ‘social capital is actually the capitalized “Guanxi” ’ (Liu, 2004: 75). The network-based resources paradigm of ‘social capital’ was widely discussed and the definitions of Bourdieu, Coleman, and Lin were highly cited. Many studies focused on the functions and benefits of ‘social capital’ in personal mobility including employment and promotion (e.g., Bian, 2004; Bian and Qiu, 2000; Hu, 2004; Xu, 2003), which is also emphasized as the major instrumental function and benefits of guanxi in Chinese culture. No doubt, the network-based resources and benefits emphasized in ‘social capital’ just readily resonated with the culturally deep-rooted narratives of the guanxi system in Chinese culture. Consequently, the persuasiveness of such new concepts and ideas would increase and the diffusion of these new concepts would become easier (Kern, 2010).

However, guanxi in the Chinese cultural setting is not the specifically Chinese version of ‘social capital’ (Lin and Si, 2010; Park and Luo, 2001). These two concepts differ in terms of cultural basis, volition of the members, membership eligibility, and the level of trust and shared benefits from the networks. The guanxi system in the Chinese cultural setting is formed under conditions of resource scarcity (Lin and Si, 2010). It is not only a cultural or social given but a system that is closely tied to the institution and structures of power in China (Gold et al., 2002). It is further modified by its unique Chinese cultural contexts, which mainly emphasize the positive and instrumental aspects of clan-like network resources. Guanxi is closely tied with the clan and kinship system in Chinese culture, whereas ‘social capital’ is based on the civil society in Western culture. The relationships and ties essential for the networks in the guanxi system are largely characterized by the strong ties formed from kinship and close relations based on shared common experiences. Network members in guanxi relations in Chinese society usually have a relatively narrow radius of trust, and limit their trust to a small, exclusive clique (Lin and Si, 2010). Whereas the social individuals in the ‘social capital’ system comparatively enjoy higher volition and more choices in creating their networks and also pursue not just the benefits at the individual level but also the benefits at the community and even national levels. ‘Social capital’ emphasizes both the individual-based networks and trust, and norms between members at the higher levels of community and even civic participation at the national level. Guanxi in China is highly characterized by dense strong ties that are usually rooted in familism or a common background and experience and sparse weak ties that are usually established by legal and contractual norms and constructs (Granovetter, 1973; Lin and Si, 2010).

With the gradual maturity of the Chinese sociological community and further interaction with foreign intellectual communities, a number of Chinese sociologists still prioritized the network domain of social capital while marginalizing the social trust and civic participation paradigm (Table 3). Yet the recent trend is that more and more Chinese sociologists have gradually begun to discuss and cite the social trust and civic participation paradigm of ‘social capital’ in their writings (Table 3), which indicates an increasing interest among Chinese sociologists in utilizing social trust and civic participation to study Chinese society. As discussed earlier, such a gradual shift may document the gradual academic development and the increasing vitality of sociology as a discipline in China. Yet, social science takes place in a social context and must be relevant in this context (Alatas, 2010). In the course of social science knowledge circulation, there are receptions, exchanges, as well as the negotiations of theory and practice, including the dynamics of interchange between academic and extra-academic actors. Part of such interchange centers around the ‘social relevance’ of sociology, especially in the peripheral contexts (Keim, 2008; Lagos, 2015). The rise of scholarly interest in social trust and civic participation among Chinese sociologists may also index some changes in Chinese society.

Since its open door and reform policy from 1978, China’s economic reform has been highly successful, but has also been accompanied by a series of social problems. Traditional Chinese culture values collectivism. Urban residents are usually governed through the work unit (danwei in Chinese) and rural residents by village central committee. The great success of China’s economic privatization and market economy program was accompanied by a decline of the danwei and a decline in collective responsibilities (Xu et al., 2006) in China. With the further commercialization of the housing market and increasing migrant populations due to the country’s rapid urbanization, the Chinese government is challenged by the decline in the state’s ability to govern effectively (Bray, 2006). Confronted with such challenges, ‘community’ as a concept and a social unit, which had been used by China’s first generation of sociologists in the 1930s and 1940s, has found its way right back into the scholars’ favorite vocabulary and also readily into the official governmental discourse (Bray, 2006; Xu et al., 2006). The Chinese central government decided to posit ‘community’ in part as a counterweight to the negative consequences of its economic modernity and urbanization transformation, such as cultural, social, and political fragmentation, by officially proposing the ‘community construction’ (shequ jianshe in Chinese) as a nationwide social engineering project to build a politics of control and management (Bray, 2006).

The officially proposed strategies of ‘community construction’ actually facilitated the return of this concept to general scholarly usage as well as the popularity of the term as a social unit (Yan and Gao, 2007). More and more sociologists began to analyze the strategies and limitations of community development in current China. Social trust and mutual support and reciprocity with neighbors emphasized in ‘social capital’ theory now began to attract the Chinese sociologists’ attention. More and more articles began to analyze the strategy for sustainable community development by discussing the social trust, mutual reciprocity, and civic participation among community residents. ‘Social capital’ and the construction of social capital at the community level thus became the popular theoretical framework for community construction. All this greatly facilitated the rise of the social trust and civic participation domain and the changing focus of analysis level from individual to the diversification of individual, community, and national level (Table 4).

In addition, in 2005, the then Chinese government initiated the policy of constructing ‘a harmonious society’ (hexie shehui in Chinese) to challenge the social problems in a rapidly changing society, which encourages a pragmatic attitude toward social conflicts and thus more liberal and flexible attitudes toward social science research. As the former President Hu Jintao said, ‘the construction of a harmonious society is a very good opportunity for the development of sociology, or we can say that the spring of sociology is coming!’ (Wu, 2009). These developments have given more room to research on social movements and collective actions with the consideration of maintaining social stability (Wu, 2009). In this broad context, social trust and mutual reciprocity at the community level as well as civic participation at the national level all became very popular in Chinese sociologists’ citations and discussions of the concept ‘social capital.’ More Chinese scholars were directly legitimizing the emerging sociopolitical construction of community using the variant of the Western concept of ‘social capital,’ even the mutual trust and reciprocity emphasized by this concept is based on Western civil society. For example, Putnam’s definition was highly cited in discussing the strategies to promote the vitality of village committees by increasing the mutual trust and sense of civil citizenship among the residents in rural areas (Hu, 2011; Hu and Dong, 2011; Li, 2009). Increasing the ‘social capital’ at the national level to promote mutual trust and cooperation within civil society was also discussed by citing the definition by Putnam (Su, 2009; Xu, 2007).

Conclusions

By employing a combination of bibliometric analysis and a longitudinal content analysis of publications citing social capital theory among Chinese sociologist from 2000 to 2011, the present study has empirically documented the rough trajectory through which the concept ‘social capital’ has been diffused into the Chinese social science field. The concept’s rise to prominence can be charted as having been developed from the dominance of the network-based resources at the individual level paradigm, which was characterized by some conceptual ambiguities of equaling ‘social capital’ to guanxi, to the coexistence of the individual-level network-based resources paradigm with the social trust and civic participation paradigm at the community and even national levels. Such a shift of the paradigm in this concept partly resulted from the determination of academic excellence, individually and nationally, among the international intellectual communities. But we cannot deny that the concurrent socio-institutional context in China along the diffusion trajectory of the concept ‘social capital’ also played its role in the circulation of this intellectual idea imported from another cultural field. The transference, diffusion, and appropriation of intellectual ideas is a knowledge-construction process which is influenced by the ongoing national sociocultural context (Bourdieu, 1999). The sociocultural context and the institutional context in the destination nation may elevate the prominence and visibility of a certain paradigm, theoretically and methodologically, while marginalizing others when the original intellectual ideas cross boundaries. It may also make visible certain scholars and their approaches while obscuring others and thus promote and legitimize certain domains. The marginality of the social trust and civic participation domains of ‘social capital’ in its early years of diffusion in China is not due to their lack of validity. But such theoretical domains of ‘social capital’ conform well to the broad sociocultural context of community construction and harmonious society construction projects initiated by the Chinese government in recent years. More and more Chinese sociologists have shifted their focus to social trust and civic participation at community level or even at the national level to reinforce that vision.

Some limitations of the present study need to be acknowledged. The first limitation of this study could arise from the search strategy. This study restricted its bibliometric search to two keywords in the article title among peer-reviewed published papers available from two databases, Sociological Abstracts and CNKI between 2000 and 2011. This means that some relevant articles possibly have been omitted from the search. The time period under study is rather short, only 12 years. Further, there might be numerous studies that lack the keywords in the title but have still utilized a ‘social capital’ theoretical perspective in the main text. There might also be some journals that are not indexed in the Sociological Abstracts or CNKI databases. An additional search in other bibliographic databases such as Scopus or Web of Science might produce results to complement the final sample in the current study. Second, this study is mainly based on bibliographic data. The interpretation of bibliometric studies is often difficult since bibliographic data are limited in revealing the complexity of human behaviors related to the citing and discussing of some ‘fashionable concepts.’ The analysis of the diffusion of ‘social capital’ could be further strengthened by surveying and interviewing scholars who were early adopters of this concept and some influential scholars who were known to hold ‘gatekeeper’ positions in Chinese sociology, which might provide more details regarding the confusion, controversies, or even debates involving the concept of ‘social capital’ among the Chinese sociology community. Future study might incorporate survey results or interview analysis from these scholars to get their personal reflections and perceptions regarding their appropriation or reshaping of the concept of ‘social capital’ in their relevant scholarly writing. In addition, this study has focused on the citation patterns of ‘social capital’ among Chinese sociologists but did not analyze the networks of these sociologists. According to Frickel and Gross’s theory of scientific-intellectual movement (2005), established scholars rich in academic capital such as organizational, financial, and publishing resources are best positioned to lead and legitimize the new research program. This study did not provide empirical information regarding such background information of the early adopters, such as their geographic location, their educational background, and whether these early adopters of the concept ‘social capital’ were mainly from high-status institutions. Thus, a final direction for future study would be to analyze the institutional locations and the networks of citing authors to further our understanding of the diffusion of this concept in China.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I thank Dr Wiebke Keim, the project director, other research fellows of the project, and the project’s Wednesday Discussion participants for their helpful comments on this research. I also thank all the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their thoughtful comments on the earlier draft of this article.

Funding

This study was funded by an International Research Fellowship from the Institute of Sociology at Freiburg University, Germany, for the research project ‘Universality and the Acceptance Potential of Social Science Knowledge.’

Notes

Author biography

Yuying Shen is currently an assistant professor of sociology at Norfolk State University, USA. She also taught at Texas Tech University and has held an International Research Fellowship at the Institute of Sociology, Freiburg University, Germany (2012) and a Visiting Scholarship at GESIS, Cologne, Germany (2014). Her research interests include globalization and comparative sociology, medical sociology, social gerontology, and community studies. Her research has been published in Social Science and Medicine, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Research on Aging, among others.

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