Abstract

Academic literature and international reports on social capital tend to acknowledge that economic factors are not enough to yield socially and environmentally balanced development. However, there is no novelty in restating that social, institutional, and cultural dimensions have a major impact in a qualitative increase in the communication between individuals and social players, in the production of innovative forms of social interaction and in the reduction of the traditional dilemmas of collective action. Thus, what is the innovative character of social capital theory? What are the origins and premises of this theory? What can a critical analysis of it bring about in the understanding of local development? In what does social capital differ from social control, civic participation, political culture or civic culture? How to rigorously develop a concept that is in-between economic, cultural, social and political dimensions? Does it represent an epistemological progress when we consider the current attempts in building new categories to explain and read the reality of local development? What is its heuristic value? How does the analysis of local development in Bahia question and contribute to the understanding of social capital? In this article, based on a critical review of definitions of social capital and a field research being conducted in the countryside of Bahia (mainly through the experiences in the Municipality of Pintadas in the «sertão», a semi-arid zone in the North-East of Brazil), we try to understand why and how social capital can help us firstly explain changes in local power structures in Brazil, and secondly analyze the complexities of local development.