Putnam
Danielle Cooper (dlc@mail.utexas.edu)
Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:07:45 +0000
Danielle Cooper
By examining the differences among regional governments in Italy, Robert
Putnam seeks to discover the roots of an effective democracy in Making
Democracy Work. Because Italian regional governments operate under the
same constitution with equivalent funding but vary in their social,
economic, cutural and political settings , Putnam views the country as an
ideal experiment in the development and functioning of democratic
institutions. According to Putnam, a marked difference in efficiency and
effectiveness of the regional governments exists between the Northern
regions and the Southern regions. Putnam primarily attributes the disparity
to the presence of a strong civic culture in the North and its absence in
the South. According to Putnam, the civic community is "marked by an
active, public-spirited citizenary, by egalitarian political relations, by
a social fabric of trust and cooperation" and a lack of civic engagement is
characterized by "vertically structured politics, a social life of
fragmentation and dislocation, and a culture of distrust." Putnam
demonstrates that a civic culture, when measured by involvement in
voluntary associations, newspaper readership, and certain voting patterns,
is correlated with strong government in Italy, but his choice of factors
favor the North. Voluntary associations, especially, can be a indicator of
a society's ability to self-organize in order to address problems with the
government.
In order to measure the level of "civic-ness" within each region, Putnam
evaluates the frequencies of certain activities relating to community
involvement. Because newspapers contain information about community
affairs, Putnam surveyed the newspaper readership in each region. Putnam
contends that the number of voluntary associations gauges the amount of
civic engagement because these organizations bring people out into the
community to work together towards common goals. While he considers voter
participation on policy questions an indication of civic virtue, he regards
preference voting as a sign of clientalism, which he associates with a lack
of civil society.
Although these measures can provide a sense of a community's interest
in public policy, they can also be correlated with economic success. During
the years of the study, the Northern economy was much stronger than in the
South. Wealth is closely associated with an increase in leisure time,
which could account for the extra amount of time Northerners have available
to join voluntary organizations. Good economic times allow people freedom
from worries about basic issues of survival which instead lets them focus
on issues within the community, a factor which could explain the disparity
between levels of newspaper readership in the North and the South.
Putnam's choices and definitions of these measurements seem to favor
the North. He omits church membership as a valid measure of "civic-ness"
because he believes the hierarchical structure of the church goes against
the egalitarian nature of civil society. He concludes that because
church-goers claim to be more content with life and existing political
structures, they must be "more concerned about the city or God than the
city of man." However, the church, like the voluntary associations of the
North, provides a means of bringing people of a community together where
they can feel united by a common purpose and can communicate about common
problems facing the community. Putnam considers voting on public policy
issues, which occurs at a higher frequency in the North, a sign of civic
virtue because citizens are voicing their preferences on matters of public
policy. However, he asserts that preference votes, which occur at a high
frequency in the South, are not a sign of involvement in the community,
even though they also demonstrate a specific preference about the
operations of the government.
According to Putnam, this study of regional government in Italy
demonstrates that a vibrant apolitical civil society, characterized by a
high frequency of voluntary organizations, is essential to the efficient
and effective operations of the government. These organizations provide
citizens with the experience of working together towards a shared goal and
help them to develop a sense of a common purpose. Indeed, the citizens
within a democracy must experience a feeling of shared well-being in order
to make necessary sacrafices such as surrendering freedoms to the
government for the good of the whole society.
Also, the networks that develop within organizations can provide
citizens with a means of discovering common problems, articulating those
problems to the government, and demanding collectively that the government
find solutions to those problems. It is this political application of
voluntary associations that directly affects the operations of a democratic
institution. Bird watching clubs can work together to persuade the
government to protect the environment, and members of a soccer club who
discover that they share a common need for day care can push the government
for day care centers. The potential for a united voice allows the
government to know the problems of its population, and the threat of a
collective response at the voting box encourages officials to respond
honestly and efficiently.
In order to be a supportive force for democracy, voluntary
associations and networks of people working together to influence the
government must be self-organized and not designed or infiltrated by the
government. The Hitler Youth is a example of an association organized to
serve the goals of the government instead of working as a independent
mouthpiece for the concerns of citizens. Associations must maintain their
autonomy to contribute to the effective operations of democratic institutions.
Formal organizations are not essential to the process; even informal
networks of citizens can accomplish collective action before the
government. Putnam's measurement of voluntary organizations, as an
indicator for "civic-ness", provides an indication of the tradition of
self-organization within a society and the subsequent ability to
collectively influence government, but formally designated organizations
are not required to meet this end.
In order to associate, even informally, citizens must live in a society
which allows its members to assemble. Putnam attributes the difference in
the level of civic culture to the tradition of voluntary organization that
evolved in the North as opposed to the feudal relationships that developed
in the South. He writes that authoritatian governments in the South
extinguished "any glimmerings of communal autonomy…as soon as they
appeared," whereas communes the North allowed citizens to join together and
take part in of government.
According to Putnam, the present day manifestations of these differences in
culture are a Northern society which includes many voluntary associations
and a Southern society which depends on patron-client relationships to
accomplish political goals. The absence of associations that allow for the
easy formation of collective bargaining power may have contributed to the
low performance rating by Southern regional governments. Machiavelli wrote
that "there has never arisen a republic or any form of political life, for
men born in such conditions entirely inimical to any form of civic
government."
However, Edward Said asserts that that cultures are not static. The
history and traditions of a region or nation do not preclude it from
developing new forms of government, and the political structures within
cultures are mutable. Although the Southern regions seem less civic
according to Putnam's tests, the South could develop new customs of
collective action that allow people to work together to influence the
government.
Putnam's study of Italy demonstrates a connection between certain
measurements of a civil society and the effectiveness and efficiency of the
government, although his choice of measurements favor the Northern regions
of Italy. The level of voluntary associations within a democracy
correspond society's traditions of free association and the propensity of a
society to organize to address a common need, both characteristics that can
change within a culture as a culture evolves. Formal and informal
associations can contribute to the operations of a democracy by developing
bonds among citizens and providing a common voice for individuals in
government.