Social Capital and Rural Development in the Knowledge Society

Edited by Hans Westlund, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping, Sweden and Institute for Developmental and Strategic Analysis, Ljubljana, Slovenia and Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Professor, Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Japan

• Contents:Preface1. Social Capital and Sustainable Urban–Rural Relationships in the Global Knowledge SocietyHans Westlund and Kiyoshi Kobayashi PART I: NEEDS AND PROBLEMS OF BUILDING SOCIAL CAPITAL2. Forest Governance and Social Capital: Structures and Functions Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Tsuyoshi Hatori and Hayeong Jeong 3. Joint Facilities, Improvement Districts, Clubs and Commons: Towards a Taxonomy of Institutionalised Social CapitalLars Westin and Johanna Zola 4. Foundations of Collective Action: Towards a General TheoryGautam Ray PART II: ANALYSES OF EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL5. Does Social Capital Contribute to Regional Economic Growth? Swedish Experiences Kent Eliasson, Hans Westlund and Stefan Fölster 6. Changes in Social Capital and Community Functions in Depopulated Areas from Case Studies of 12 Communities in the San’in DistrictKatsuhisa Ito 7. Social Capital in Rural Poland: Between Tradition and Social EngineeringAnna Gąsior-Niemiec 8. Social Capital and Economic Growth in China’s ProvincesYuheng Li and Hans Westlund PART III: PROBLEMS OF LOCAL DEVELOPMENT AND RURAL POLICIES9. Social Capital and Place-based Policy: Aboriginal Communities in CanadaM. Rose Olfert and David Natcher 10. What Can Local Policies Do? An Activity Theory Analysis of Municipal Support to Local InnovationsCecilia Waldenström 11. Local Responses to Structural Changes: Collective Action for Rural Communities in Sweden Anette Forsberg 12. Collective Actors as Driving Forces for Mobilizing Social Capital in a Local Community: What Can be Learned for Health Promotion?Malin Eriksson, Lars Dahlgren and Maria Emmelin 13. Social Capital for Sustainable Rural Regions: The Roles of Voluntary Association-Mediated Public ServiceHayeong Jeong, Kiyoshi Kobayashi and Hans WestlundIndex

‘This book by Westlund and Kobayashi emphasises the fact that the gap between urban and rural areas is no longer relevant today: all places and regions are under a strong influence from cities. The authors show in a straightforward way that the continuum between more and less urbanized places requires new types of regulations, based on innovation and local skills, and that rural policies cannot be based on agriculture only but primarily require the mobilization of local social capital links.’