A Study On The Effect Of Social Capital Of Community Governance On The Residents’ Participation

The city is a concentrated embodiment of a country’s development. As thesmallest unit of urban organization and management, the community bears animportant responsibility for effective governance of the city. The constructionof a service-oriented government demands the government to shift the centralfunctions to the community. The effectiveness of community governancedepends on whether the practical needs of the community residents aresatisfied or not. But the lack of residents to participate in communitygovernance is the lack of effectiveness of community governance. Therefore,the degree of community residents’ independent participation of thecommunity governance has become an important standard which measures theeffectiveness of community governance. However, community participationbehavior is restrained and affected by many factors. One important factor isthe size of the stock of community social capital. Given the grim reality ofdeceasing community social capital stock, how to accumulate social capitaleffectively and thereby increase the enthusiasm of community residents toparticipate in community governance highlights the importance and urgency.Based on the investigation of social capital and the present situation ofcommunity participation of the residents, the paper shows significantrelationship between the social capital and the participation of the residentsthrough the empirical research. It also discusses the correspondence within thecommunity social capital dimensions (factor) and the participation of theresidents. These dimensions can effectively promote the enthusiasm ofresident’s participation in community governance, which further improves theeffectiveness of the community management. Thus it turns out theoreticallyand realistically significant for the residents and even the communitygovernance by developing and accumulating social capital vigorously.The main research is summed up as follows:1. It defines reasonably the community social capital, including the connotation, dimensions, function and measurement.2. It analyzes objectively the present difficult participation situation of thecommunity residents in China and the relation between the embodiment ofpredicament and the loss of community social capital.3. It also proves the significant relation between the community socialcapital and the participation of the residents through the questionnaires.4. It discusses how each dimension in community social capital makes upfor the shortcomings of the way for the residents to participate.5. It also provides several path options to accumulate the size of the socialcapital.