Aug 27 2009
Revitalizing Social Capital
| Subejo | Tokyo | The Brunei Times| August 26, 2009|Opinion |
IN the development process worldwide, researchers and policy makers these days are paying greater attention to the significant role of social capital. There is a growing understanding that social capital is one among the determinant factors in the social and economic development.
The significant of social capital on development process has been accounted since the pioneering works by Coleman (1988) and Putnam (1993). Social capital is defined differently depending on the discipline of the scholars defining it and its intended application.
However, it is not simply the sum of the institutions, which underpin a society; it is also the glue that holds them together. It includes the shared values and rules for social conduct expressed in personal relationship, trust, and a common sense of civic responsibility, that makes society more than a collection of individuals.
Social capital is one among the basic elements of development. The market and government only could not always work well for entire conditions; the role of community represented by social capital may substitute and play an important role particularly for providing local public goods.
The way in which social capital, whether through local association or in other manifestations, performs its role is centered on three mechanisms: the sharing of information among group members, the reduction of opportunistic behaviour, and the facilitation of collective decision-making.
The mechanism of social capital in promoting human cooperation for mutual benefit can be understood through the role of social capital for creating reciprocity, as information channel and nurturing norm and effective sanction within a community
In the context of development policies planning, the importance of social capital which simplified into local social relations has been well acknowledged by recent development planners. Introduction of new development programme without deep consideration on local community relationship will result in social disintegration and even may destroy social capital.
It is important to ensure that policy and socio economic changes are mitigated when social capital may be damaged. This has led to an underpinning of the idea that planning and wider local governance practices should foster strong communities.
The ideas and centrality of community in planning and policy rhetoric which can be traced through direct link between the concept of social capital and that of community as it is widely understood. Importance of social capital for planner may cover wide are of planning such as economic and resources planners. Social capital can be employed as resource which is useful for local development and social cohesion and there is related concern with embeddedness of economic and social activity.
In order to full-use of social capital for development programme, it should be carefully and comprehensively identified. In the context of rural development in developing countries, actually elements of social capital have been practiced as long tradition and or newly formalised.
For instance, villagers in Indonesia have been practising a prominent traditional norm of human interaction and mutual cooperation, which widely known as gotong royong.
Many local institutions have been created under the spirit of gotong royong values. A long tradition of community-based groups in Indonesia has existed and later more informally organised. The key feature of the government-sponsored groups is that they formally organised and have mandatory membership.
The gotong royong can also be functioning as a collective action group. Subejo and Iwamoto (2003) termed a wide variety of mutual cooperation practises as the institutionalised stabilisers. Those cooperation activities have been practiced and institutionalised as a social custom among rural communities.
The main problem with regard to social capital utilisation for rural development in rural Indonesia is less attention on social capital value. The issues also have not been systematically studied.
How to use social capital resources for promoting effective and efficient rural development likely has not been taken into account by development planners. Typical of top-down approach is still much more predominant on the developmental process specifically in rural areas.
Deep understanding and comprehensive study on potential benefit of social capital for rural community development will be essential issue in the future of rural development programme in Indonesia.
Social capital not only has positive impacts, but also has potency of negative impacts. The negative impacts usually have been widely known as dark side of social capital. Those include neglecting the context and unequal asset and power distribution, social capital sometimes becomes a tool for social exclusion and attacking of welfare maximisation.
A very strong trust and social solidarity among group members of mafia is also typical example of dark side of social capital. Social bonding among them is very tight and beneficial for the group members, but from wider public perspective, those activities are very dangerous and may damage or threaten the public interest.
As developmental process has moved from top down approach to be more bottom up approach, the role of local community has been becoming more important. Full understanding of community resources including community relationships and network which recently widely acknowledged as social capital is necessary for the developmental planning process.
The full use of social resources of community will promote the higher affectivity of rural development programme. This not only will boost economic growth, but also will maintain and enhance social solidarity and cohesiveness of community which finally promote sustainable development model for rural people and their environments.
Well understanding on social capital resources enables development planners to correctly identify more positive sides and reduce the negative potencies of them.
Promoting social capital in rural community development which directed to be more inclusive and moving from bonding into bridging and linking dimension may strengthen the relationship and enables them to gain more benefit from their cooperation activities. Implementation of participatory planning approach for rural development is impossible without deep understanding and full-use of various features of social capital in the local community.
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The writer is a lecturer at School of Agriculture Gadjah Mada University, PhD Candidate at The University Tokyo and Chairman of Indonesian Agriculture Science Association (IASA)-Japan
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