Considerations and Strategies of Enhancing Social Capital

Social capital is an important and popular term in a wide range of social sciences disciplines. Contrary to this common use and its entry in everydaylife conversations and rehtoric of politicians, literature on enhancing social capital for utilizing its benefits is not well-developed. Therefore, the article tries to answer a question regarding considerations and strategies needed for management of social capital in Iran. After analysing and assessing main approaches in terms of their definitions and explanations of social capital, synergy approach is used as a theoretical framework for extracting main strategic suggestions for enhancing social capital. The synergy approach concentrates on both institutional and functional characteristics of the state, social networks and finally on the pattern of intereaction between them. therefore, strategies based on this approach are prefered for the purpose of enhancing social capital.