Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy

Robert Putnam's work has become a Political Science classic. His work is part of new area of research -- civic participation. During the past decade, this area has exploded from obscurity twenty years ago to being one of the most popular fields today. Putnam's works have had a profound impact on many other areas in the Political Science world, from local governance to international political theory. Regardless of whether you agree with his theories, if you are at all interested in Political Science, it is a must read. Moreover, either "Marking Democracy Work" or "Bowling Alone" are becoming standard texts used in most 100 & 200 level undergraduate courses.

The central concept of Putnam's study is "institutions," but he frames these institutions as both an independent and a dependent variable. Positing that institutions shape politics, but institutions themselves are shaped by history, Putnam is able to explain both the causes and the effects of political institutions among Italian regions. The "effects" portion of his study is the lesser of the two in importance; basically, the fact that all Italian regions got identical institutions in 1970, and yet the performance of these institutions varied widely across Italy, sheds much doubt on the questionable theory that formal institutional design itself is a primary determinant of government performance (although most Italians North and South agree that the new regional governments have been a change for the better).But if institutional design has limited explanatory power, then what other variable can better account for institutional performance? This is the more important half of Putnam's work, for it is where he shows that "social context and history profoundly condition the effectiveness of institutions" (182), by unveiling his more controversial and powerful independent variable: civic culture. What is civic culture? It goes by many names and concepts for Putnam (civic traditions, political culture, civic involvement, social capital, republican virtues) but in its most basic form it is "norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement" (167). In contrast with the existence of this civic culture in Northern Italy, identified as having a millenium-long pedigree due to the North's highly decentralized political history, Putnam uses the concept of "amoral familism" to characterize the civic culture (or lack thereof) in Southern Italy. Amoral familism implies that reciprocity and engagement are limited to family relations and to vertical networks of hierarchical power alone (in contrast to more participatory and egalitarian horizontal networks in the North), and that all other social relations, as a consequence, are characterized by material self-interest. Tracing the evolution of amoral familism to Southern Italy's monarchical past, Putnam finds that Southern regions have been doomed to institutional failure by their civic legacy, just as the North was guaranteed a relatively easy success by theirs. Putnam summarizes these two divergent starting points as "vicious and virtuous circles that have led to contrasting, path-dependent social equilibria" (180). To prove this main causal argument, that civic culture determines institutional performance, one would obviously need adequate measures for both civic culture and institutional performance. As evidence of institutional performance, or "good government," Putnam chooses twelve indicators: cabinet stability, budget promptness, statistical and information services, reform legislation, legislative innovation, day care centers, family clinics, industrial policy instruments, agricultural spen

Putnam's thesis on the importance of social capital in engendering the successful functioning of democracy is an intriguing idea that merits serious reflection in our context today. His study of the community-organizations in Italy, and their effects on the effective workings of democracy on a regional and national level, highlight the importance of civic organizations and their ability to inculcate in their members a sense of civic duty - which consequently leads to a vibrant democracy. This book is perhaps especially fitting in the American context today in light of declining interest in politics, diminishing belief in the efficacy of governing institutions in solving problems, and the general ethos of apathy and frustration felt around the nation in the realm of democracy (something that the most recent election's low voter turnout indicated). Although the study is interesting, the idea is perhaps a little less useful in the pragmatic sense; one could run into the question of a chicken-and-egg scenario where there is a debate between which came first: vibrant democracy or civic organizations. Regardless, the book is one of the best in its subject area and a recommended read for any student interested in such issues.

Which came first, responsive government or civic participation? Much like the chicken and the egg, this has been a question with no end of debate. However, some new ammunition for the civil society camp may be found in Dr. Robert Putnam's research on Italian civic origins. Over the last two decades, Dr. Putnam has been collecting data on this issue from the various regional governments throughout Italy. The central question behind his research has been what are the conditions for creating strong, effective, responsive, and representative institutions in a democracy? Extremely well written, Putnam's work takes the reader logically through the research process and into the conclusion: that a region's level of civic engagement has a direct relationship to effective democratic institutions. Beginning with an overview of the research, Dr. Putnam tells us that there exists a definite difference between performance in the northern regions as compared to the southern regions. Using heightened chorale and soccer club association as a litmus test of social capital, Putnam argues that good government must first be preceded by a foundation of trust towards one's neighbor. Putnam's analysis takes the reader through three broad modes of explaining institutional performance: institutional design, socioeconomic factors, and finally sociocultural factors. The former, institutional design, we find should be discounted from the start as all of Italy was provided the same governmental backdrop. As for socioeconomic affects, Putnam points out that the southern regions, those with the least responsive institutions, were actually more industrialized and better developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than their northern counterparts! Why then such a disparity in performance if the two leading arguments for predicting performance are demonstrated not to hold true? As one might have guessed, sociocultural factors are to blame. The argument being that social background is linked with public policy decisions. The way a society holds its values defines how institutions are developed. For the northern regions, medieval communes and guilds from the 11th century provide a "fabric of organized collective action for mutual benefit" that is lacking in the south. Putnam argues that these foundations of community spirit are the basis for northern Italy's heightened level of social capital. The south, having a separate history, never developed such community spirit, and instead relies on individual action for the fruit of one's own labor. One then can only conclude that the seeds of civil society in any culture were planted long ago. So why read the book? Putnam's conclusions actually have bearing on today's discussion of civil society in America. As in northern Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, America appears to have a declining level of social capital. But does decline equate to eli

This book was probably the smoothest and most interesting political science text I've read this year. Putnam ties democratic theories together clearly, making Italian regional government seem exciting. The reader will also appreciate the underlying commentary on democracy and civic participation in a global sense, particularily in the United States