The Social Capital Operation And The Suburb Village-Level Governance

The concept of social capital is widely inclusive. Based on different perspectives western scholars have different definitions of social capital. In this study, the author defines social capital as the sources that embedded in a particular social structure and can produce return. It appears as various norms and social relations such as the participation network with the characterization of trust, reciprocity and cooperation that can adjust people's behavior in order to achieve specific objectives. Based on this definition of social capital, the social capital of village governance at the village level discussed in this paper is the resources that embedded in village-level governance network and can enhance the performance of village governance. It is the sharing knowledge, understanding, norms, rules, trust and expectations that formed by the interaction of the undertaking of regular activities in the process of village-level governance. It consists of three basic elements: village-level governance network, norms (mainly referring to village rules, etc.), and a relationship of trust, etc. They are the positive factors for promoting the sound development of village communities, the keys to solve the impasse of village communities for collective action, enhance performance of village-level governance and achieve good governance of the village.This research takes the suburb village-level as an angle of view, inspects the social capital cultivation and operation in the suburb village-level governance process. Specifically speaking, this dissertation takes the village-level governance of T village, Jiangqiao Town, Jiading District in Shanghai as an empirical study, the important events in its village-level governance process as a clue, studies the following questions: How does the social capital operate in the village-level governance process? What are its operation foundations and process? What has achieved finally? Then it reveals the logic of social capital operation in the process of suburb village-level governance. T Village is a village community which is located in the western end of Jiangqiao Town, Jiading District in Shanghai. According to the survey, T village marches in the forefront of China's rural areas in the disclosure of village affairs and democratic management. Also, because of the initiatives in the areas of the innovation in the building of village rules, the effective implementation of various systems and the villagers participation, T village nurtures and accumulates rich social capital, which makes its village-level governance achieve initial success.By absorbing Giddens' structuralism methodology, this research inspects the social capital operation in the village-level governance process from the dimensions of the actor, the action and the structure. Through actor dimension, the inspection is the actors who carry on the social capital operation in the governance process and their motivations and so on. Through action dimension the inspection is "the capitalization process". That is, how are the resources embedded in the specific social structure formed into the social capital? What are the conditions of completing the capitalization process? And how do the actors interact with each other? Through structure dimension the inspection is the structure trust and the standard around the operation..This research divides the social capital into the System capital and the Relational capital. And then it respectively launches the analysis by taking the System capital and the Relational capital as the clue. System capital such as roles, rules, procedures and organization is related to the structural elements that promote mutually beneficial collective action; while relational capital involves in the values, attitudes, norms and beliefs that influence individual action in the cooperation. The organic combination of system capital and relational capital is not only the base to enhance the performance of village-level governance, but also the social resources of village governance.In the fourth chapter, this dissertation takes the series of Village rules which formed in the village-level governance practice of T village as a clue. After investigation and analysis, the author believes that the enhancement of T village's governance performance can be attributed to the System capital which forms on the base of the whole set governance network as well as a series of Village rules' operation of T village. Based on the practice and the theory analysis, the author proposes the logic of the System capital operation in village-level governance of T village. On the one hand, in practice T village creates a set of village rules which affects and restricts the individual acts of village community. On the other hand, the organic combination of individual acts and village rules constantly promotes the interaction of the roles and the perfect of the village rules which in turn further promotes the identity and share of values among villagers, between villages and cadres in T village. Thus they form an important resource—the system capital which is embedded in the network of the village-level governance in T village and can enhance the performance of village-level governance.In the fifth chapter, this dissertation takes the villagers participation and village-level governance network which forms in the village-level governance practice of T village as a clue, discusses several cases of participating in the governance practice of T village, studies the village-level management elite, the "two transformations" of villagers' participation and villagers' capacity in participation. It also analyzes the operation foundation of relational capital, elaborates the logic of relational capital operation in the village governance. Firstly, the sharing knowledge, understanding, norms and expectations which were formed in the process of regular interaction based on the village governance network establish a trust relationship. Secondly, through the strengthening of policy advocacy and communication, it improves the extent of village's agreement on village governance, and also changes the villagers' individual actions of values, attitudes, norms and beliefs in cooperation with others. Thirdly, as the cooperation in the village-level participating network it promotes individual interests and the interests of the community Simultaneously, it also takes villages rules as restriction norms. In turn the community members form a specific path-reliance when facing the similar situation which promotes the persistence of this cooperation. Fourthly, the stock of social capital (such as trust, norms and networks) is often self-reproduction and can be cumulative. Finally, this dissertation further discusses the characteristics and function of social capital in modern village-level governance, as well as how to construct the social capital in modern village-level governance.