The idea of social capital – meaning, most simply put, 'social connections' – was unheard of outside a small circle of sociologists until very recently. Now, it is proclaimed by the World Bank to be the 'missing link' in international development and has become the subject of a flurry of books and research papers. Harriss asks why this notion should have taken off in the dramatic way that it has done and finds in its uses by the World Bank the attempt, systematically, to obscure class relations and power.

John Harriss is Professor of Development Studies at the London School of Economics. He has been a visiting researcher at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, India and has published extensively on aspects of India's political economy.