Abstract

The government-driven poverty-alleviation strategy had been the orthodox anti-poverty policies in China over the half century since 1950s. However，participatory approaches in poverty reduction emerged and developed flourishingly in China during the first decade of the 21st century，focusing on social participation and state-civil society cooperation. The new poverty-reduction strategy has broken through the traditional state-run anti-poverty ideology in China，providing us with an excellent chance to study poverty problems from social capital perspective. Taking community F as a revelatory case，the book explored the participatory poverty reduction pattern and analyzed its roles in improving the effectiveness of urban poverty reduction in social capital perspective.

Compared with traditional poverty-reduction strategy，the participatory poverty reduction programmes were based on strategic and constructive state-society cooperation and helped to build capacities for public-private partnerships. The new poverty reduction programmes promoted the creation of social capital of the poor community by activating social participation and creating cross-ties between the state and society. Bonding social capital and bridging social capital were generated through cross-sector cooperation and public-private partnerships. Social capital had important positive welfare effects on the poor families，especially in strengthening their social support network and alleviating their social exclusion. However，the main conclusions were based on the field study in community F and therefore the generalization of the research findings may be probably limited due to the uniqueness of the community.