Despite the desire of residents in many rural communities to cooperate in local ventures, efforts at organizing such cooperation are often fragmented. Where a group of local residents emerges which will assume responsibility for the community (a phenomenon developing in most nations), their effectivity is directly dependent on the degree of local-corporate decision making they engender. Past failures cause mistrust and this inhibits the willingness of villagers to work together and tends to make communities hesitant about trying other ventures. Although when an emergency arises people work well together, when less immediate issues threaten the absence of long-term cooperative structures is evident. Citizen cooperation is replaced by individualism, especially in situations where property or normal habit patterns are involved.
Until citizens develop ongoing structures of cooperation, fragmentation and the memory of disappointing past exercises will continue to block future development.