Putnam on Italy

[Brian Jones <misterpink@mail.utexas.edu>]

Putnam on Italy
Brian Jones


	That participation breeds governmental legitimacy is a rule that is 
not only applicable to political participation, but to civic 
participation.  In fact, in his study of modern democracy in Italy, 
Robert Putnam argues that civic engagement is of primary importance in 
determining the institutional success of government and its respect by 
its citizens.  In his study, Putnam uses this rule to explain the 
varying quality of institutional performance among the regional 
governments of Italy since 1970.  He concludes that the primary 
predictor of institutional performance of a particular regional 
government is the degree to which civil society plays an important role 
in that particular regional culture and that civil society provides the 
conditions necessary for its own growth and expansion.  An important 
corollary to the second part of this conclusion is that political 
structure that encourages participation and civil society can breed 
them.  These conclusions do not only explain conditions in Italy; they 
provide an important basis for understanding the current and future 
development of democratic and liberal governments on a global scale, 
and, more specifically, in the Middle East.

	The political boundaries of modern Italy include and combine 
regions of diverse histories, traditions, and concerns.  In many ways, 
the nationalization movement of the late nineteenth century forced 
national unity and political centralization on these diverse regions.  
For the better part of a century afterwards, Italian politics was 
rigidly centralized; however, postwar prosperity and ensuing 
socioeconomic transformations created an environment in which this 
centralized power was frustrating and inefficient.  Decentralization and 
regionalization were supported by very different groups from different 
parts of the country with different concerns.  However, regardless of 
whether the motivator was increased democracy, increased administrative 
efficiency, or regional economic development, all proponents of 
regionalization agreed on regional government as the solution and on a 
consistent implementation of regional government in all twenty political 
regions of the country.  It is precisely this phenomenon of a consistent 
and initially identical solution simultaneously supplied to the 
disparate situations of many different regions that provides Putnam’s 
analysis with its importance.

	Putnam argues for the importance of the historical civic character 
of a region in determining its current and future civic character.  In 
making this argument, he makes a primary distinction between regions of 
the North and of the South.  Beginning with the autocratic reigns of 
Roger II and Frederick II, the South has historically been a vertically 
oriented society.  Power in the South has traditionally been something 
that leaders exercise on their subjects.  The civic atmosphere of the 
South has been one of distrust, acquiescence, and alienation.  
Contrastingly, the North, since the merchant communes of the early 
fourteenth century, has been a horizontally oriented and community based 
society.  the political environment of the North as traditionally been 
characterized by the political accountability of leaders and the 
political participation of citizens.  Putnam makes an argument for a 
causal link between these civic traditions and the varying degrees of 
success of contemporary regional governments.

	Not surprisingly, given the importance Putnam places on the 
political and civic histories of a region in determining that region’s 
future political success, Putnam finds that institutional success in 
contemporary regional government is typically high in the North and 
typically low in the South.  Putnam measures institutional performance 
based on twelve indicators that fall under the broader categories of 
“policy processes”, “policy pronouncements”, and “policy 
implementation”.  In the category of process, qualities such as 
political stability, budgetary responsibility, and responsive 
information services meant institutional success.  In the second 
category, policy flexibility, innovation, and coherence all meant 
successful institutional performance.  Finally, in the realm of 
implementation, success was measured based on the presence and degree of 
penetration of certain services such as healthcare and daycare centers, 
the level of per capita expenditures on certain social programs, and the 
accessibility of government bureaucracy.  Across all categories, 
Northern regions such as Emilia-Romagna and Friuli-Venezia Giulia were 
high performing while Southern regions such as Calabria and Campania 
were predominantly low performing.  Putnam’s argument is that the 
reasons for institutional success or failure of the different regions 
revolve around the nature of civil society in that region.

	For Putnam, civil society rests on several theoretical concepts.  
they are civic engagement, political equality, trust and tolerance, and 
social association.  As a combination of these concepts, civicl society 
forms a political atmosphere in which individuals can have a direct 
effect on the functioning of their society through cooperation with 
other citizens.  It is Putnam’s belief that such an environment forms 
the basis for free institutions.  For this reason, he attempts to define 
civil society in concrete terms specific to Italy in order to use that 
definition to make his final conclusion regarding the importance of the 
degree of penetration of civil society in a region in predicting the 
degree of institutional success in that region.

	In order to create a uniform scale for the measurement of the civic 
character of a society that is specific to modern Italy, Putnam bases 
his analysis on four indicators.  These are the importance of 
associational life, incidence of newspaper readers, electoral turnout in 
referenda, and the use of the personal preference voting option on the 
Italian ballot.  The importance of associational life is based on the 
number and size of voluntary associations in a region, with sports clubs 
being of primary importance in Italy.  Newspaper readership is measured 
by the percentage of households with at least one daily newspaper reader 
and is intended to signify awareness of and involvement in civic 
affairs.  Electoral turnout simply measures the degree of basic 
political participation in a region.  The use of the preference voting 
option is used as an indicator of patronage politics.  Because the 
ballot in Italy is a straight party ticket, expression of preference for 
a particular candidate is evidence of a political patron-client 
relationship.  Putnam uses these measures to make his case for the 
primary significance of civil society in determining institutional 
performance.	Regions of the North tend to score well on these 
indicators while regions of the South tend to score poorly.

	Regions in Northern Italy are, and have been, predominantly civic 
in nature; the regions of Southern Italy measure poorly on all indices 
of civic life.  Regional government in the North outperforms government 
in the South consistently through all categories of measurement.  Putnam 
makes the case for the causal relationship of this correlation.  Civil 
society produces equality of access and effect in politics and prevents 
personalistic clientelist politics.  It breeds attitudes of engagement 
and involvement rather than those of alienation.  It provides for grass 
roots access to government and prevents the development of an entrenched 
political elite.  Finally, it provides for the trust and communication 
necessary for the beneficial socioeconomic development that is necessary 
to make all of the above possible.  Therefore, civil society allows for 
and promotes liberal government and provides the means for its 
maintenance.  There are other characteristics of a society that 
correlate with successful government that are used by proponents of the 
individualist tradition; however, Putnam argues that these correlation's 
are spurious and that the presence of a civil society is the primary 
predictor of institutional success.

	The primary opposition to the theory that civil society breeds 
responsible, liberal government focuses on the importance of the 
individual pursuing self-interest.  This argument is based on he idea 
that a certain minimum socioeconomic situation is required for the 
operation of liberal government and civil society.  Below this floor, 
citizens do not have the time to pay attention to matters of government 
and civic affairs.  However, Putnam finds the correlation between 
economic status and institutional performance to be spurious.  As 
evidence, he cites several Italian examples.  One is that the economic 
situation of fourteenth century Northern Italy was much worse that that 
of the contemporary South, but that civil society flourished 
historically in the North while the South remains to this day mired in 
patron-client politics.  The other examples have to do with regions that 
have historical socioeconomic situations in categories such as infant 
mortality that predict failure and civic histories that predict 
success.  These regions without exception turn out to be among the 
liberally governed regions; therefore, it is civic character rather than 
socioeconomic situation that predicts the level of institutional 
performance.

	Putnam’s argument for the importance of civil society in liberal 
government is strong.  It also has the side effect of making the point 
that civil society breeds civil society.  This conclusion forms a dire 
outlook for societies without a civic tradition.  However, Putnam’s 
analysis also shows that all regions preferred their regional 
governments to the centralized government and that indicators of civil 
society increased consistently as well.  It is this point that 
institutional reform can shape political and civic character that can be 
used to inform a positive outlook for the democracies of the world, and 
specifically of the Middle East.

	In Zakaria’s article “Illiberal Democracy”, he describes the 
situation in many countries of at least partially functioning democratic 
governments without liberal governance.  His argument is that democracy 
without a tradition of constitutional liberalism or at least education 
and guidance in constitutional liberalism will not be successful in 
providing liberal government for its citizens.  In a specifically Middle 
Eastern context, many theorists have written that the lack of civil 
society in the Middle East makes it impossible for the Middle East to be 
progressive politically and that the Middle East will always be a 
problem area for the protection of human, civil, and political rights.  
Putnam would agree that the present lack of a civil society explains the 
present situation; however, he would claim that, rather than being 
necessarily dangerous as Zakaria argues, the introduction of democracy 
without liberal government will inform the future development of 
government and civil society.  Putnam would argue that the opportunity 
for political participation would gradually make people desire to make 
this participation more meaningful and that this desire would eventually 
create liberal government and civil society.

	Putnam’s dichotomous analysis of North and South mirrors in many 
ways Huntington’s civilization analysis in “The Clash of 
Civilizations”.  Putnam sees fundamental cultural and societal 
differences being the cause of conflict and varying degrees of success 
between regions just as Huntington does.  However, his analysis is not 
as pessimistic as either Huntington’s nor Huntington’s because it allows 
for these situations to change.  Putnam does believe that civil society 
and liberal governance are fundamentally linked, but he argues that any 
society can eventually achieve comparable degrees of success through the 
implementation of institutional reforms that will gradually encourage 
the development of civic participation that is necessary for liberal 
government.