Disaster-Recovery Social Capital and Community Participation in Earthquake-Stricken Ya’an Areas

Zhichao Li and Xihan Tan
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Zhichao Li: School of Political Science and Public Administration, East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai 201620, China
Xihan Tan: School of Public Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Social capital plays a significant role in post-disaster community participation and disaster recovery. This study divides social capital into three aspects: Cognition, structure, and relation, and discusses the impact of these factors on community participation in post-disaster recovery. Through data analysis, we found that a self-organized relationship villager network had a positive effect on villagers’ participation in voluntary community activities after an earthquake, while the local cadre relationship network had a negative impact. However, the latter could encourage villagers to participate in disaster-recovery activities organized by the local government. These findings indicate that the mobilization mechanism for post-disaster local-government reconstruction and community self-organization are the same, both coming through the social-acquaintance network, a type of noninstitutionalized social capital. The implication of this study suggests that local government should attach much importance to the construction and integration of social networks in earthquake-stricken areas to cultivate community social capital.

Keywords: social capital; community participation; disaster recovery; local government; community self-organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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