Social Capital Activation and Co Production in Post Poverty Rural Governance: Five Innovations in an Aging Chinese County

How can a resource constrained rural county activate latent social capital to sustain governance under conditions of advanced aging and out migration? This paper examines Shangyou County, a mountainous, formerly poverty designated county in Jiangxi Province, China, where between 2022 and 2025 local authorities developed five interlocking governance innovations: the consolidation of fragmented grid systems, the mobilization of elder councils for dispute mediation, the creation of county wide social psychological services, the repurposing of cultural centers as tourism infrastructure, and the synchronization of employment support with community corrections. Drawing on sociological theories of social capital, co production, and active aging, the paper argues that these innovations share a common logic: the deliberate conversion of existing but un activated relational resources into structured governance partnerships. The analysis identifies four mechanisms—organizational consolidation, social capital activation, vertical mandate leveraging, and sequential scaling—that enable this conversion. The case demonstrates that even in counties where fiscal capacity is severely limited and the population is demographically skewed toward the elderly, sustainable governance innovation is possible when local institutions recognize and mobilize the social authority embedded in community networks.