Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Life
Born and raised in Port Clinton, Ohio, Robert Putnam is one of a long series of
writers on community and civic participation that comes from a small town
(John Dewey is a another famous example). His mother was a schoolteacher
and his father a builder. Port Clinton was ‘pretty unremarkable’ but ‘a good
place in which to grow up’ according to Robert Putnam. Like many
adolescents in small town America in the 1950s he found aspects of the life
stifling. His family had been moderate Republican and Methodist, but his
political and religious commitments were to not to be the same. Putnam went
to Swarthmore College, Philadelphia – the Quaker higher education institution
known for its liberalism, commitment to social involvement and intellectual
rigor.
There Robet Putnam met his wife, Rosemary. A sign of the shift in his politics
was that on their first date, she took him to a Kennedy rally (and they were
later to travel to Washington to see the inauguration).
The early sixties were an unusual period in America. There was a great deal
of political discussion and activism – it was the time of civil rights (and we
were all involved in sit-ins and protests to some degree) and of Kennedy's
election to the White House, which had an amazingly strong impact on young
people at the time. I remember we rode overnight on a train – I, and the girl
I was dating, now my wife - to Washington, and stood at the back of the
crowd at the Kennedy inaugural. The language of his speech – 'Ask not what
your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' – had a
powerful personal impact. (Robert Putnam interviewed in ECPR News 2000)
Rosemary also introduced him to Judaism (her faith). He adopted the faith,
particularly attracted by the ‘unique and intense of community’ he found
among Jews (Appleyard 2001).
Early in the 1970s Putnam began a collaboration with Robert Lonardi and
Raffaella Y. Nanetti that nearly twenty years later resulted in the seminal
work Making Democracy Work (1993). Based on a study of Italian politics
and, in particular, the experience of the move to regional government post-
1970, this book displays a number of the classic Robert Putnam hallmarks.
These include: sustained and detailed attention to empirical data; a
commitment to producing material that could help with the task of enhancing
the quality of social and political discourse; and grounded and accessible
writing. The book’s concern with civic community and social capital was a
direct precursor to Bowling Alone (1995, 2000) – Putnam’s very influential
study of the decline in civic engagement in the United States.
For many years, I've been worried . . . as a citizen . . . about things like the
collapse of trust in public authorities. When I was growing up in the 1950s
and 1960s, 75 percent of Americans said that they trusted their government
to do the right thing. Last year, same survey, same question, it was 19
percent.
As I was finishing my book on Italy, it occurred to me that what I was finding
out as a scholar of Italian politics was connected to what worried me as an
American citizen -- namely, the sense that our national experiment in
democratic self- government is faltering. So I started digging around about
trends in civic engagement in America… I frankly was astonished. (AHEE
interview 1995)
The original ‘Bowling Alone’ article generated a great deal of interest (see the
Bowling Alone debate below). It is easy to see why when Robert Putnam talks
about the significance of social connectedness and just how pervasive are its
effects.
We are not talking here simply about nostalgia for the 1950s. School
performance, public health, crime rates, clinical depression, tax compliance,
philanthropy, race relations, community development, census returns, teen
suicide, economic productivity, campaign finance, even simple human
happiness -- all are demonstrably affected by how (and whether) we connect
with our family and friends and neighbours and co-workers.
Beem (1999: 86-7) makes the point that the astonishing response to the
article revealed that Putnam struck ‘a very raw, very sensitive nerve’. His case
appeared to offer a clear and convincing explanation for the unease that
many were feeling.
As part of his follow-up to the article Robert Putnam launched the Saguaro
Seminars. These were a series of meetings held around the USA at which
‘leaders and intellectuals’ considered how they might ‘build bonds of civic
trust among Americans and their communities’. He is also founder of The
Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, a programme that attempts
to bring together leading practitioners and thinkers over a period of time to
develop broad-scale, but actionable, ideas to fortify US civic connectedness.
Following the publication of Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam has been involved
in a major, five year, study and survey of social capital in the United States,
and a joint Harvard/ Manchester University collaboration on social change.
The former explores a number of sensitive areas - such as the impact of
social diversity on social capital (Putnam 2007); the latter focuses on four
areas of social change: immigration; the changing workplace and the
consequences of women moving into the paid workforce; the changing role of
religion in society; and inequality, particularly the mounting evidence of the
inheritance of class and how it restricts social mobility (Bunting 2007).
Robert Putnam has served on a variety of bodies including the staff of the
National Security Council. He sits on the Advisory Council on Environmentally
Sustainable Development at the World Bank and is a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission and a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Robert Putnam is currently President
of the American Political Science Association (2001 – 2002). He is an
occasional consultant to the Department of State, the Central Intelligence
Agency and The World Bank. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, and
Jaffrey, New Hampshire.
Here we will focus briefly on three aspects of his work. These are his
exploration of the nature of civic community, his presentation of social capital,
the Bowling Alone phenomenon, and its aftermath. From there we will turn to
his significance for educators – in particular informal educators.
One of the most compelling studies of civic virtue in politics in recent years
was by Robert Putnam and his colleagues in Making Democracy Work (1993:
83-120) (see civic community and civic engagement elsewhere on these
pages for a fuller discussion). Their initial concern was to explore the
relationship of economic modernity and institutional performance. What they
discovered in their investigation of civic traditions in modern Italy was a
strong link between the performance of political institutions and the character
of civic life – what they termed ‘the civic community’ (ibid: 15). Such
communities were characterized by:
Civic engagement
Political equality
Robert Putnam and his colleagues were able to then take these themes and
to connect them up with a range of data sources for different regions in Italy.
They found that a clear line could be drawn between civic and ‘uncivic’
regions – and that ‘public affairs are more successfully ordered’ in the former
(Putnam 1993: 113). His conclusion was that democracies (and economies)
‘work better when there exists an independent and long-standing tradition of
civic engagement’ (Beem 1999: 85). The book effectively set an agenda for
those wanting to explore the creation of convivial conditions for of democracy
to flourish.
Social capital
The notion of social capital has been around for decades (see the article on
social capital elsewhere on these pages for a fuller treatment). It is with the
work of Jane Jacobs (1961), Pierre Bourdieu (1983), James S. Coleman
(1988) and Robert D. Putnam (1993; 2000) that it has come into prominence.
This is how Putnam (2000: 19) introduces the idea:
Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers
to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among
individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness
that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what
some have called “civic virtue.” The difference is that “social capital” calls
attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a
sense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but
isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital.
In 1995 Robert Putnam followed up his work on civic involvement in Italy with
an exploration of US experience. He began with the same thesis: ‘the quality
of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in
America) are… powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic
engagement’ (1995: 66). He then went on to demonstrate that on a range
indicators of civic engagement including voting, political participation,
newspaper readership, and participation in local associations that there were
serious grounds for concern. It appeared that America’s social capital was in
decline. He concluded:
The concept of "civil society" has played a central role in the recent global
debate about the preconditions for democracy and democratization. In the
newer democracies this phrase has properly focused attention on the need to
foster a vibrant civic life in soils traditionally inhospitable to self-government.
In the established democracies, ironically, growing numbers of citizens are
questioning the effectiveness of their public institutions at the very moment
when liberal democracy has swept the battlefield, both ideologically and
geopolitically. In America, at least, there is reason to suspect that this
democratic disarray may be linked to a broad and continuing erosion of civic
engagement that began a quarter-century ago. High on our scholarly agenda
should be the question of whether a comparable erosion of social capital may
be under way in other advanced democracies, perhaps in different
institutional and behavioral guises. High on America's agenda should be the
question of how to reverse these adverse trends in social connectedness, thus
restoring civic engagement and civic trust. (Putnam 1995: 77)
The data used was disputed – and there were a number of commentators
who argued that what was being seen was change rather than necessarily
decline (see the Bowling Alone debate below). However, the article was
simply Putnam’s first step.
He went on to examine the possible reasons for this decline. Crucially, he was
able to demonstrate that some favourite candidates for blame could not be
regarded as significant. Residential mobility had actually been declining for
the last half of the century. Time pressure, especially on two-career families,
could only be a marginal candidate. Some familiar themes remained though:
• Changes in family structure (i.e. with more and more people living
alone), are a possible element as conventional avenues to civic
involvement are not well-designed for single and childless people.
• Suburban sprawl has fractured the spatial integrity of people’s. They
travel much further to work, shop and enjoy leisure opportunities. As
a result there is less time available (and less inclination) to become
involved in groups. Suburban sprawl is a very significant contributor.
• Electronic entertainment, especially television, has profoundly
privatized leisure time. The time we spend watching television is a
direct drain upon involvement in groups and social capital building
activities. It may contribute up to 40 per cent of the decline in
involvement in groups.
The follow-up US study to Bowling Alone has also stimulated debate. The first
findings from the study found that, in the short run, immigration and ethnic
diversity tended to reduce social solidarity and social capital. In ethnically
diverse neighbourhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’.
Trust (even of one's own 'race') is lower, altruism and community cooperation
rarer, friends fewer (Putnam 2007).
They have very low barriers to entry - the doors are open, there are folding
chairs out on the patio - they make it very easy to surf by. You can leave
easily. But then they ramp people up to a huge commitment - at some
megachurches, half of all members are tithing [giving a tenth of their
income]. How do they get from the low to the high commitment? By a
honeycomb structure of thousands of small groups: they have the mountain
bikers for God group, the volleyball players for God, the breast cancer
survivors for God, the spouses of the breast cancer survivors for God, and so
on.
The intense tie is not to the theology but in the emotional commitment to
others in their small group. Most of these people are seeking meaning in their
lives but they are also seeking friends. The small groups spend two hours a
week together - doing the volleyball or the mountain biking and praying; they
become your closest friends. These churches form in places of high mobility -
people live there for six weeks and the church provides the community
connection. When you lose your job, they'll tide you over, when your wife
gets ill, they'll bring the chicken soup. (quoted in Bunting 2007)
First, from the material marshalled by Robert Putnam we can see that the
simple act of joining and being regularly involved in organized groups has a
very significant impact on individual health and well-being. Working so that
people may join groups – whether they are organized around enthusiasms
and interests, social activity, or economic and political aims – can make a
considerable contribution in itself. Encouraging the development of
associational life can also make a significant difference to the experience of
being in different communities. Here we might highlight the case of schooling.
Educational achievement is likely to rise significantly, and the quality of day-
to-day interaction is likely to be enhanced by a much greater emphasis on the
cultivation of extra-curricula activity involving groups and teams.
Third, there is very strong argument here against those who wish to
concentrate the bulk of resources on groups and individuals who present the
strongest social problems (currently the received thinking among many
policymakers - see, for example, the Connexions strategy in England). If we
follow Robert Putnam’s analysis through then we can see that, for example,
crime can be reduced, educational achievement enhanced and better health
fostered through the strengthening of social capital. Significantly this entails
working across communities – and in particular sustaining the commitment
and capacities already involved in community organizations and enthusiast
groups, and encouraging those on the cusp of being actively involved. The
majority of the people we are talking about here cannot be classified as
suffering from multiple disadvantage, will not be engaged in criminal activity,
and will be (or have been) engaged with education systems and/or the world
of work. In other words, open and generic work needs to be afforded a far
higher priority – and so-called ‘issue-based’ work needs to be more closely
interrogated as to the benefits it brings.
Robert Putnam has done us a great service here, and while aspects of his
argument will no doubt be disputed over the coming years, his central
message is surely true. Interaction enables people to build communities, to
commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric.
References
Jacobs, J. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York:
Random
Putnam, Robert D. (2007) 'E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the
Twenty-first Century The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture', Scandinavian
Political Studies 30 (2), 137–174. [http://www.blackwell-
synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x. Accessed August 8,
2007]
Interviews:
Appleyard, B. (2001) ‘Joining the team, it’s a better way of life’, Sunday Times
March 25, page 8.
Bunting, Madeleine (2007) 'Capital ideas', The Guardian July 18, 2007.
[http://society.guardian.co.uk/communities/story/0,,2128343,00.html.
Accessed July 19, 2007].
ECPR News (2000) Leaders of the Profession: Robert Putnam – Interview with
Ken Newton, ECPR News 11: 2.
Michael Schudson, "What If Civic Life Didn't Die," The American Prospect no.
25 (March-April 1996).
Alejandro Portes & Patricia Landolt, "The Downside of Social Capital," The
American Prospect no. 26 (May-June 1996).
Links
How to cite this article: Smith, M. K. (2001, 2007) 'Robert Putnam', the
encyclopaedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/putnam.htm.
Last update:.