The Impacts of Social Capital on Civic Participative Institution`s Effectiveness

In these days, social capital is one of the key factors to increase the trust and commitment in society. Civic participation in local governments has also become a factor that should be seriously considered in decentralized policy making processes. As efforts to build social capital in both public sector organizations and private sector organizations, many clubs or small groups, such as an in-line skating club and a mountain climbing club, are created in an organization. Based on the previous studies, the present study categorized five factors of social capital, including organizational activism, giving and volunteering, electoral politics, activist politics, and faith-based social capital. From the data analyses focusing on U.S. Neighborhood Council cases, the present study found that some factors of social capital and demographic characteristics may influence civic participation in the policy process. Utilizing citizen participation in the policy process of the city government is critical for increasing democracy(Musso, et.al, 2011).