Putnam and the Civil
Society
 In Making Democracy Work,
Robert Putnam describes and theorizes upon his massive study
taken between 1970 and 1991 of the development of democratic
institutions in modern Italy. Though he spares the reader
from much of the detail present in his research, Putnam
nevertheless offers a compelling and factually complete
record of how regional governments in Italy evolved, and
presents a strong case that the primary reason for
governmental success, after economics, is something he calls
"social capital". Putnam has drawn the conclusion that good
civil society is measured by a population's level of
associations and membership in non-governmental
organizations, that there is some sort of causal
relationship between the two, and that lack of this social
capital will result in decreased performance in
government.
Many have criticized Putnam
for unsuccessfully addressing the simple truth that above
all other causes, economic factors are the prime actor in
governmental success. "Does it not stand to reason that when
a society has more wealth and prosperity people have more
time to engage in recreational, non-governmental
activities?" critics argue. In fact, Putnam does not
disagree with this statement at all. "Nothing is more
obvious even to the casual observer than the fact that
effective democracy is closely associated with socioeconomic
modernity, both across time and across space," he says. But
Putnam warns against using common sense and overall
impressions (which are often disproportionately influenced
by individual events) as the primary basis for making
evaluations. Putnam notes that despite the many blanket
statements people make about causes for governmental
effectiveness, these statements are very infrequently backed
up by empirical data. When put to the test, Putnam finds
that although the correlation between economic success is
strong, which stands to common sense, it does not in fact
explain everything, and in fact explains very little other
than a general trend.
Putnam then goes on to
demonstrate how powerful good methodology is in revealing
real relationships that can be concretely measured and
discussed as facts rather than opinions, and shows a
scientific rigor that would make most social scientists
blush (but which would likely seem commonplace to other
natural scientists). Despite the strongest complaints of
political philosophers, one must not forget that everything
Putnam says is backed up by twenty years of meticulous work
and hard data.
It is with this mountain of
evidence that Putnam shows strong correlation between
membership in NGOs and governmental success. While
governmental effectiveness vs. economic strength align
themselves into rough correlation, Putnam's data shows that
there are several other factors which correlate much more
strongly with governmental success (at least after the
measured success is normalized with respect to economic
wealth.) Thus, "Campania, the region around Naples, is much
more advanced economically than Molise and Basilicata, at
the very bottom of the developmental hierarchy, but the
latter two governments are visibly more effective than
Campania's." The correlation between performance and
economics is only r = 0.72. Meanwhile, the correlation
between civic community and performance is so strong, r =
0.92, that "when we take the 'civic-ness' of a region into
account, the relationship we previously observed between
economic development and institutional performance entirely
vanishes."
Putnam's next step is to
attempt to explain the reason for these correlations, and
here is where he gets in trouble with critics. Many
opponents to Putnam's theory argue that the ideas presented
showing the importance of social capital to governmental
performance (discussed in detail in other papers on this web
site) are only relevant to Italy, and that this limited
study cannot be universally applied outside that single
country. But in fact, Putnam takes pains to show that while
he believes these correlations can be universalized, he does
not have adequate evidence to support it to the same extent,
and even labels one primary section for discussion of the
causal relationships "The Civic Community: Some Theoretical Speculations" (my italics). While he feels justified in drawing
these comparisons, citing studies of Latin America
(Hirshcman, 1977), assorted Third World countries (Esman,
Upman, etc.), and even Almond and Verba's comparative study
of civic culture in five nations of varying economic
development (1966), all of which support his comparison, he
carefully qualifies his speculation as just that:
speculation.
Nevertheless, in exploring
possible explanations for the differences in success between
different regional governments, Putnam winds up showing with
reliable data a truth which many philosophers have been
aware of for centuries: that civil society must develop
organically, and cannot be artificially implanted. Classical
philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, had long been
hinting at what Hegel eventually described as a dialectical
progression of institutions. Institutions, he states, are in
a continuous state of change and modification by the
citizens who participate in them, leading in his belief
ultimately to a constitutional monarchy, what Zakaria might
have called a liberal (even if not a strictly democratic)
government. Weber and Foucault both echo this understanding,
though Foucault paints a somewhat darker picture of humans
as being in a constant power struggle with institutions that
reach deep into every aspect of life. These philosophers all
predict (to varying degrees) the failure of institutions
that do not naturally arise out of the political life of a
nation, a phenomenon demonstrated by Southern Italy's lack
of success in producing effective democracies, a truth
further supported by similar studies in Latin America (cited
by Putnam) which show the low success rate of imported
"grass-roots" organizations that are not truly
grass-roots.
Thus, while attempting to
contradict Putnam's findings, Sheri Berman's analysis of the
role of grass-roots organizations in Nazi Germany can be
seen in many ways to support Putnam's theory. Weimar Germans
had lived under a long tradition of Imperial rule, thanks to
Otto von Bismark's careful construction of a strong central
government with weak representational rule (and thus a weak
Reichstag, easily taken over and collapsed by Hitler and his
party), a government that was able to avoid the questions of
nation and race that the French had been struggling with
since the eighteenth century. Thus, the grass-roots
organizations manipulated by Nazi politicians were on weak
historical ground, had little precedent for participating in
a positive dialectical progression, and were thus
susceptible to the volatility that older, more deeply rooted
institutions might have resisted. The fact that "for civil
society to have the beneficial effects neo-Toquevilleans
posit, the political context has to be right," as Berman
states, in no way weakens Putnam's argument-- it simply
qualifies it. Even as social capitol was great in Germany
before the Nazi's took over, in the wrong political climate
it was easily manipulated by the key Nazi tactic of
deception and treachery, so that once Nazi's did seize
control, civic trust rapidly disappeared, and German
government ceased to be good. The lesson then is not that
civic society is bad, but that civic society must exist in
the proper political environment, particularly one in which
it has naturally grown out of the continuing dialectical
progression, and is thus safer from the tactics of untruth
and deception of extremist, racist groups.
Even if there are
discrepancies in Putnam's explanations that must be
addressed, the correlations he finds between civic
mindedness and governmental success still exist. Provided
that certain qualifications are taken into account, ala
Berman's warnings about Germany, the fact that the
correlation between governmental effectiveness and social
capitol is consistently much higher than the correlation
between governmental effectiveness and economic success
cannot be ignored. Even if individuals dispute the
explanations Putnam suggests, it is irresponsible to deny
these correlations just because they suggest difficulty for
the reader's favorite non-Western nation to achieve a
Western style democracy.
Putnam's study says that
civil society requires a certain political environment where
individuals are free to discuss and associate in the first
place. It likewise shows that socioeconomic development is
highly advantageous to nations attempting to build a strong
Western style democracy, at least by the yardstick of
responsiveness, continuity, and ability to provide social
services outlined by Putnam. Those who argue with Putnam
will be hard pressed to show where any other nations have
had similar results without following the conditions for
success Putnam outlines. There is no reason why someone
might choose a different yardstick by which to measure the
success of a government, but this leads the discussion into
a territory where Putnam makes no comment. So long as
government success is measured by the same standards Putnam
uses to evaluate quality, opposing theories must always be
able to answer the question "Sounds plausible, but can you
prove it?" This is a question Putnam is very successful at
answering, and which opponents must learn to answer as well
if they hope to make a strong case countervailing these
theories.
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