The Role of Social Capital in Handling Covid-19 at the Local Level in Indonesia

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic is a multidimensional problem that requires the government to be adaptive and creative in mobilizing all available resources. It's not just a matter of solutive policies, but more than that, social capital is needed because handling the Covid-19 crisis must involve the cooperation of all parties. This study aims to provide an analysis of how social capital works in handling Covid-19 in Blitar City, Indonesia. The focus is seeing response from Regional Apparatus Organizations (OPD) and community elements consisting of Covid Task Force, Community Organizations (Ormas), Community / Community Volunteers, RT / RW, and other components in the Blitar City community. This study shows that social capital in Blitar City works well. There is mutual trust and strengthen cooperation between the government and the people to come out of the crisis together. The City Government has succeeded in showing good responsiveness accompanied by coordination and cross-stakeholder communication, increasing trust in the government, and that is the key to public compliance with social mobility restrictions and recommendations for obeying health protocols. Although this compliance is not followed by all people, at least in general social solidarity has been formed which is the main key in handling the Covid-19 crisis.

Received: 15 July 2021 / Accepted: 7 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021