E-ISSN 2281-4612
ISSN 2281-3993
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
www.richtmann.org
Vol 10 No 6
November 2021
106
.
Research Article
© 2021 Wahyudi et al.
This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
Received: 15 July 2021 / Accepted: 7 October 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021
The Role of Social Capital in Handling Covid-19 at the
Local Level in Indonesia
Wahyudi
1*
Achmad Nurmandi
2
Salahudin
3
Iradhad Taqwa Sihidi
3
1Department of Sociology, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia
2Department of Government Affairs and Administration, Jusuf Kallla School of Government, Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
3Department of Government Studies, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia
*Corresponding Author
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2021-0158
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.
Keywords: Covid-19, Social Capital, Public Policy; Regional government; Community
1. Introduction
At the end of 2019, precisely in December, the world was hit by a non-natural disaster which was
marked by the emergence of a new type of virus called Covid-19/Corona originating from Wuhan
City, China (Blühdorn and Deflorian, 2021). In the end, this virus managed to enter Indonesia.
Through an official announcement delivered directly by President Joko Widodo, on March 2, 2020,
two Indonesian citizens (WNI) domiciled in Depok were found to have contracted the SARS Cov-2