Research On The Governance Of Changde Community Under The Perspective Of Social Capital Theory

Social capital as a new concept is the focus in academy.It is the capital embedded in the social network.At present social capital had become the common research concerns of sociology,politics, economics and management science.Social capital has threeresearch level points:the macroscopic view,medium view and the microcosmic view.The community social capital is an important branch of social capital,which is formed by the individuals and organizations in the social contacts in communities.The behavior choice of community members is influenced by the community social capital.This paper aims to explore the relationship between community social capital and community governance. After reviewing literatures related to’community’,’social capital’ and ’community development’, a structured questionnaire was designed by the researchers. Community was viewed as research unit and the whole Registered Community Development Associations in ChangDe were surveyed.780questionnaires were completed and analyzed. Variables related were categorized according to factor analysis. Bridging social capital was grouped into three factors-community interpersonal relationship, participation of community affairs and participation of community politics. Short-distance social capital was grouped into two factors, local interactive relationship and local social participation. Long-distance social capital was grouped into two factors, long-distance social relationship and long-distance social trust. Community development was categorized into three factors, including community building (process), human environment and physical environment (outcome). The findings show that community social capital and community development has strong relationship, and there is quite positive interaction between both variables. However, either process or outcome dimensions, the impact of long-distance linking social capital on the community development is stronger than bridging and short-distance linking social capital.According to discussion and analysis, this study proposed some suggestions for the reference of promoting community work for policy-making, community practice and academic research.