Enabling structures for coordinated action: community organizations, social capital, and rural community sustainability

Abstract

Throughout Australia, as in other countries, rural communities are responding to the local effects of economic, political, and social restructuring. While federal and state governments have historically taken a “top down” regional economic development approach in this country, there is now a growing emphasis being placed on the role of local actors in achieving effective responses to community challenges across economic, social, and environmental indicators. The concept of social capital - which, drawing on Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti’s (1993, 167) definitions, constitutes “those features of social organisation, such as trust, norms, and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions” - has gained increasing popularity in policy discourses that seek to locate effective responses to global problems within local community.