The Research On Community Participation From The Rational Choice Theory Perspective

Along with the society transformation, the community construction and development of our country’s speed is faster. A wide range of residents participate in community activities are the basic power to promote community construction and development. This paper is on the basis of the theory of rational choice, through more than 300 residents in Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, N Community questionnaires and interviews of community staff. This paper presents the current situation of community participation in urban residents, elaborates the reasons of influence residents’ community participation from the perspective of rational choice theory. This is supplement of community participation which is in the lack of theoretical and empirical research. What’s more, this paper puts forward the suggestions for the improvement of residents’ community participation.In the process of economic and political system reform, the community participation enthusiasm of N community residents is gradually strengthened. N community is undergoing a shift from administration to service, which can provide more and more diverse community of public interest. But at the same time, N community’s residents participation is still lack of universality. The participation of personnel structure is not reasonable. The depth and breadth of community participation is not enough. Passive participation and repeated participation is existing widely in common residents.This paper found that influence the residents of community participation in reasons mainly include the following:the interests relation of community and residents and community participation in self-efficacy; the different dependency of unit and community’s resources; The authority relationship and trust relationship between community and residents; Residents’ rights concept and their identification of the community. In addition, the community participation is irrational sometimes. Due to the limited information or ability, residents not always make utility maximization decisions.At last, this paper puts forward some constructive suggestions to promote residents’ community participation. For example, expanding the earnings of residents community participation; reducing the cost of community participation; cultivating the community intermediary organizations network; strengthening the protection of rights of community and resident; standardizing the community participation.