抄録
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the role played by social capital in the performance of rural community development. For this purpose, we identify the structure of rural community development that contains any social capital and community functions as component elements using original survey data. From analyzing the structure, the following indications are obtained: 1) Social capital has large effects on rural community development directly and/or through the intermediary of the enhancements of residents’ motivation, consensus-building function and resource management function. In particular, the combination with the trust of neighbors, the existence of leaders, the residents’ motivation and the consensus-building function is important in the structure of rural community development. 2) Residents’ motivation plays the roles that it has the great influence on the rural community development and it acts as a go-between in rural community development and social capital. 3) Trust of neighbors and existence of leaders improve human relations and enhance the consensus-building function so that these contribute to develop the rural community. 4) Human linkage has two influences on the rural community development. One is as a positive effect as other social capital, another is a direct and negative influence. Consequently, the magnitude of human linkage’s influence to the rural community development is not too large.
