Study On Social Capital And Community Participatory Governance

Social capital theory has played an increasingly important role in community construction and has provided new theoretical account and practical techniques for community governance. Through empirical study, this thesis discusses that participatory governance can promote the accumulation of social capital, which can fill the gap of the empirical study on the relation between participatory governance and social capital. Quantitative analysis is conducted in this thesis and data are obtained via questionnaire survey. This analysis is conducted among a sample cluster which refers to particular residents from Jiaozi Community, in terms of eight dimensions of social capital stock, namely, participatory associations or organizations, local social network, informal sociability, trust, volunteerism, social solidarity, social cohesion and social sentiment. Comparison at numerical level between experimental group and reference group is also conducted. Then the hypothesis is verified, namely, participatory governance can help promote the accumulation of social capital.Theories applied in this thesis include social capital theory and participatory governance theory. Social capital is acquired from the resources that are embedded in the social network and social capital is deep rooted in the social network and social connections. Therefore,"social capital could be defined as a kind of resources embedded in a particular social fabric that can be obtained or mobilized in a purposive action"(Lin Nan). Participatory governance refers to a process where individuals and associations that have a stake with policies participate in public decisions, resource distribution and cooperative governance together with government(Chen Shengyong, Zhao Guangyong).The research procedure of the thesis is put forward like this:formulating a hypothesis—hypothesis testing by practice—conclusion analysis. Among them, the hypothesis is that participatory governance can help promote the accumulation of social capital, which means through participatory governance, the social capital stock of the samples(experiment group) is larger than that of those who doesn’t adopt participatory governance(reference group). Testing refers to the project research conducted among particular residents in "I U SHE" in Jiaozi Community in Jinjiang District, then comparing the results with that of the communities where participatory governance is not conducted and presenting the difference of social capital stock numerically between the two groups and drawing the conclusion that participatory governance can help promote the accumulation of social capital.At last, this thesis concludes the mechanism where participatory governance acts on social capital:first, creating a base where social capital exists and runs, namely, organization. Second, providing a platform. Third, establishing a mechanism. Fourth, providing norms and suggestions for the activities of "I U SHE".