Disaster Relief and Social Capital : An Asian Perspective

Abstract

Asia is very much weak in its capacity to respond to large scale disasters, which take place more frequently in Asia. Such incapacity owes much to the lack of social capital accumulation in this region. Social capital is known to be composed by two dimensions: psychological and structural. The former is habit of hearts. The latter is consisted with, bonding, bridging and linking. Asia has not been able to build philanthropy and volunteerism as habit of heart and bonding neither owing much to poverty. For bridging, to heterogeneity of the society. And for linking, to the relative lack of political freedom. This lack of social capital accumulation has put Asia in vicious circle in its relationship with disaster relief. In order to overcome this vicious circle, it is requested to cultivate reflexive citizen which require pre-existence of social capital. Social capital could be accumulated by civic education which can best be achieved by citizen’s participation. And for successful citizen’s participation, accumulation of social capital is a prerequisite. Zigzag approach seems to be the only alternative in such a dilemma. Understanding such a quintessence of Asia, it is inevitable to adopt contextual approach in extending any sort of disaster relief assistance from outside.