Abstract

Elite domination is recognized as a significant downside of “linking social capital,” but its remedies are under-theorized and scarcely documented. Addressing this gap, we argue that bonding or bridging ties characterized by strong reflexivity, awareness of the state’s symbolic violence, and rich cultural resources for cross-fertilization serve as countervailing mechanisms against unresponsive linking ties. If bonding and bridging ties lack these characteristics, even when those ties are numerous, they are unlikely to challenge unresponsive linking ties. Our theoretical argument is substantiated through a three-village comparison in Taiwan during the post-Typhoon Morakot reconstruction period, where linking ties among most disaster areas, state agencies, and large NGOs were deployed to promote elite agendas. Based on forty-five in-depth interviews, our findings suggest that in Namaxia, where all three features identified in our framework were absent in bonding and bridging ties, grassroots resistance against unresponsive linking ties largely failed. In Jialan, bonding networks displayed strong social reflexivity, but neither bonding nor bridging ties cultivated awareness of the state’s symbolic violence or cultural resources for cross-fertilization. The village only partially succeeded in challenging unresponsive linking ties. In Ali, where local bonding and bridging networks developed all three features mentioned above, the village successfully transformed unresponsive linking ties. The conceptual delinking of network homogeneity/heterogeneity and exclusivity/inclusivity in this study bears broader implications for social capital theories.