Putnam’s Making Democracy Work has been accused of Orientalism and credited
with the concepts of Social Capitol and Civil Society; he is a proponent of
both the main views we seek to understand in the Middle Eastern context.
Orientalism condemns the underdeveloped Middle East to endless failure to
improve. It is based on the premise that political concepts are not
universal—that what works well in the West is not suited to other parts of
the world. While traditional Orientalism has unsavory connotations such as
a racist sense of superiority by Westerners over other peoples and the idea
that Western institutions don’t work in other places because non-Westerners
lack the capacity to utilize them properly, the basic premise that Western
politics are inapplicable to other parts of the world is a viable thesis
which needs to be considered and reconciled with any alternate view we
propose. Putnam’s book supports this idea, not with talk of racism and
Western superiority, but with a paradigm of virtuous circles of trust and
vicious circles of suspicion. The system is one of self-reinforcing growth
in one direction or the other, so that the tides of civilizations become
exceedingly difficult to turn. This Orientalist fatalism is accompanied,
however, by the idea of Social Capitol—both the explanation for a society’s
difficulties and a recipe for eventual improvement.
According to Putnam, the split between northern and southern Italy is the
result of a long-term self-perpetuating cycle set in motion as long ago as
the Twelfth Century. The origin of the split lay in the difference between
the republics of the north and the centralized kingdom of the south. The
crucial issue is the way the two environments did or did not foster trust;
what he calls Social Capitol is an alternative to financial capitol—an
incentive to take risks with the expectation of future returns. Social
Capitol perpetuates itself because in an environment ruled by trust, those
who participate in the system reap the benefits of cooperation and the
ostracism which would result from dishonesty deters would-be cheaters.
Environments without strong Social Capitol, however, favor the individual
who thinks only of himself because to use resources helping others when
their return help in the future cannot be counted on is to put one’s self at
a disadvantage.
For lack of a better meter, Putnam measures the Social Capitol of the
various Italian regions by their civic institutions. The regions with more
autonomous civic groups are generally the regions with more trust among the
populace, more extensive industry and finance, and more responsive
government. He claims that the presence of this civic element in society is
the crucial element in the maintenance of strong Social Capitol. I think
that this connection is the weakest point in his argument; clearly there is
a relationship between the civic society and Social Capitol, but it does not
seem to me that the evidence suggests a causal relationship. Rather, the
data is only strong enough to support the claim that civic activity is a
useful gauge with which to measure Social Capitol.
It is natural that civic organizations be more prevalent where Social
Capitol is already strong, but I don’t think they would play a stronger role
in the maintenance of the Social Capitol than any of the many other
maintaining forces, such as socialization of the individual into the
trusting mode of thought by constant exposure to it in every facet of life.
People in a dynamic trusting environment would come to be trusting
themselves not through any one means, but rather through constant exposure
to the results of the trust—promises fulfilled, risks rewarded, and a family
already acclimated to the system. They would be discouraged from breaking
the trust themselves by knowledge of the consequences of such a break—social
exile from the benefits of the trusting environment, a loss of their own
Social Capitol.
If civic activity is indeed a significant producer of Social Capitol rather
than a mere measure of it, then it would follow that the creation of civic
organizations in distrustful environments would result in the transformation
of those environments, and the creation of Social Capitol among their
populace. This is difficult to test, especially in the Middle East, because
of the difficulty of establishing autonomous civic society in authoritarian
regimes. I am skeptical of the theory, however, because even if such civic
organizations were imposed on the populace, it would be difficult for them
to produce a significant change in their members’ distrustful outlook, their
views on human nature, and their wary instincts, all products of their
lifelong exposure to the realities of their environment. If the people are
not changed, then it is unlikely that much change would take place over
time, as the next generation will probably form their opinions of the world
based on the world they see around them—the world of their parents.
With Social Capitol, Putnam attempted to describe both the cause and the
cure for political ineffectiveness. In relation to the Middle East, his
formula is a mixed blessing; by exploring the manner in which the mindset of
a populace used to authoritarian rule is promulgated he has pointed out the
direction in which our attention should focus. Knowing why it is difficult
to get a certain group of people to govern themselves effectively or kindly
is the first step to fixing the problem. On the other hand, his findings
suggest that the process of effective democratization may be more complex
than we can reasonably simulate in other cultures. In other words, it may
be the case that democracy, the pinnacle of Western government, is not the
ideal choice for some or all non-Western societies. It may be the case that
time will mould for them a form of government suited to maximize prosperity
and happiness within the context of their own cultures, a form of government
wholly unique to them. Putnam has shown that, if nothing else, the nature
of a society is extraordinarily difficult to change, change occurs from
within, and social evolution happens slowly.