Abstract
Efforts to understand the successes and limitations of civil society institutions have inspired a growing literature on social networks, social capital, and the role that social relationships play in developing group norms supporting collective action and in linking groups to network-based resources. The literature has tended to emphasize broad egocentric networks or informal networks of community organizations, largely ignoring the importance of social capital for supporting engagement of the formal participatory institutions that are arising as a way of improving stakeholder input in many cities. The extant research on community-representing organizations has tended to conceptualize social networks in largely metaphorical terms, and has not systematically investigated the manner in which political networks support their operations. This paper argues that differing forms of network resources will support distinct types of activities undertaken by participatory organizations. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that different network resources are employed in different contexts, while suggesting that civil society organizations must overcome basic organizational hurdles related to internal conflict in order to leverage latent network resources.