Community Participation, Institutional Trust, and Collective Resilience in Times of Social Change: Understanding the Formation of Sustainable Community Cohesion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65310/bhetn303Keywords:
Collective resilience, community cohesion, community participation, institutional trust, social capital.Abstract
This study investigated how community participation, institutional trust, and collective resilience interacted in the formation of sustainable community cohesion during periods of social change. A corpus-based thematic co-occurrence analysis was conducted on 33 foundational and contemporary sources spanning social capital, collaborative governance, public trust, disaster resilience, co-production, and social sustainability. Each source was coded for participation, generalized trust, institutional trust, bonding ties, bridging ties, linking ties, collective efficacy, adaptive capacity, and cohesion. The analysis showed that participation alone was not sufficient to produce cohesion when institutions were perceived as unresponsive or procedurally unfair. Institutional trust had its strongest relational role when citizens experienced credible public performance, voice, and reciprocal accountability. Resilience literature consistently connected recovery capacity with dense local ties, bridging connections, and access to institutions beyond the immediate community. Co-occurrence patterns placed participation, trust, and social capital at the center of the evidence network, while adaptive capacity and cohesion appeared as downstream outcomes. The findings supported a layered cohesion model in which resilient communities combined horizontal solidarity with vertical institutional linkages and meaningful opportunities for participation.
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