Community Charter and Social Solidarity A Comparative Study of Award Winning Villages and Neighboring Villages in Buriram Province

Abstract

            Community charter serves as an apparatus for social order by setting rules and regulations based on local norms, values, and ways of life. The current study compares social solidarity and the adoption and implementation of community charters of award-winning villages and neighboring villages.  The authors employed a survey research design by collecting data via self-administered questionnaires of 800 respondents in four villages in Lam Plai Mat District and Huai Rat District, Buriram Province.
            We found that social solidarity is crucial for the adoption and implementation and implementation of community charters. People living in the award-winning chartered villages are relatively close, have a shared vision of community development direction, and obey the community charter. The charters may contribute to the orderly nature of the community and people feeling safe in their lives and properties. People living in the neighboring villages do not show as strong feeling about their community.  Public, private, and civil-societies agencies operating at the local level should initiate policies and programs that promote communal relationship and social solidarity for sustainable community development