This paper investigates how three forms of social capital, namely, social norms, social network and trust, influences the effectiveness of land use policies. Both long- and short-term policy outcomes are considered in the proposed analytical framework. Benefiting from a comprehensive household survey dataset covering 17 provinces in China, we adopt multiple measurements for each social capital form and policy outcome in our empirical investigation. We use a specific rural land use policy (i.e. reform to confirm, register and certify rural land rights) as a natural experiment to estimate the effect of social capital. By revealing the complex relationships amongst various forms of social capital and a wide range of policy outcome measurements, our empirical findings confirm the validity, reliability and tractability of the proposed analytical framework. Policy implications are also derived regarding how to utilise social capital to improve the effectiveness of land use policies.