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Social capital is widely recognized as one of the few sources of capital available to the poor, yet the processes by which development policies a¡ect the accumulation of that social capital are not well understood. The World Bank, through its funding of development projects, a¡ects the institutional environments for the accumulation of such social capital. The question is how to determine whether that institutional context is enabling, and to what degree. This paper compares ten recent World Bank-funded rural development projects in Mexico and the Philippines to explore how the processes of project design and implementation in£uence the institutional environments for the accumulation of horizontal, vertical, and intersectoral forms of pro-poor social capital. The ¢ndings have conceptual and policy implications for understanding the political dynamics of creating enabling environments for social capital accumulation by the poor.

The coming to power of Corazon Aquino in the Philippines in 1986 represented the restoration of elite democracy after 14 years of dictatorship. Elite democracy derives its strength from the fact that no matter how cynically the Filipino citizenry might view the electoral process, most Filipinos see no alternative to the ballot as a legitimate means of political succession. Key sectors of the U.S. national security establishment understood this and shifted Washington's support from Marcos to Aquino. The Philippine left, however, misread the population, leading to its marginalization from the mainstream of national political life. Nevertheless, elite democracy in the Philippines is fragile. Filipinos have alternated between allegiance to and disaffection with elite parliamentarism. In the absence of fundamental social and economic reforms, a new round of disaffection may already have begun.

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