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< jats: title> Abstract< jats: p> THE contemporary process of globalization has dramatically enhanced the economic importance of what a diverse group of current scholars (Bourdieu 1980; Coleman 1988b; Burt 1992; Putnam 1993a; Fukuyama 1995; Woolcock 1998) has called ‘social capital’. Social capital refers to the values and beliefs that citizens share in their everyday dealings and which give meaning and provide design for all sorts of rules. The use of the word ‘capital’implies that we are dealing with an asset. The word ‘social’tells us that it is an asset attained through membership of a community. Social capital is accumulated within the community through processes of interaction and learning. But social capital is not a commodity for which trade is technically possible or even meaningful.