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Robert D. Putnam “Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradi-
tions in Modern Italy”(Chapter 4, 5, 6)
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Introduction
• After regional reforms in Italy in the 1970s, regions were endowed with considerable pow-ers, where the North of Italy began to flourish while the South re-mained unchanged.
• Putnam in his work tries to understand why such a gap exists in a relatively small area.
Theoretical framework
• Why might social networks and social trust relate to good governance?
Social trust
Social net-works
Civic en-gagement
Accountable representa-tive democ-
racy
Better policy
outputs?
Political trust?
Interesting Fact
• In Russia the book was translated and published two years later, Put-nam's ideas have been proposed as a kind of solutions, some social pre-scription, but apparently the mes-sage has not been understood.
Chapter 4. Explaining Institutional Performance
• Socioeconomic Modernity, that is, the result of the industrial revolution.
• The Civic Community, that is, pat-terns of civic involvement and social solidarity.
• Socioeconomic Modernity, that is, the result of the industrial revolution.
• The Civic Community, that is, pat-terns of civic involvement and social solidarity.
“Civic” community
• Civic engagement• Political Equality• Solidarity, Trust, and Tolerance• Associations: Social Structures of Co-
operation
The civic society: testing the the-ory
Social and Political Life in the Civic Community
Excluded affiliations
• Unions• The Church and Religiosity• Parties
Other Explanations for Institutional Success
• Social Stability• Education• Urbanism• Personnel Stability• The Italian Communist Party (PCI)• Why are some regions more civic
than others?
Chapter 5. Tracing the Roots of the Civic Community
• Various regimes in Italy:
For South
• XI – XII C. Authoritarian regime of Norman kingdom, com-bining the elements of feudal, bureaucratic, and absolutist government.
- After King Frederick's death barons gained power and au-tonomy, but cities and towns did not. Hierarchical structure of South remained essentially unchanged.
• XIV – XVI C. South remained largely unharmed of the de-structive calamities of Black Death and foreign invasions.
- Still, social structure remained highly autocratic and hierar-chical, with kings and barons retaining autocratic powers and the vertical relations based on exploitation and depen-dence remained.
For North
• XIV – XVI C. the northernmost provinces fell back to signatories control, and other regions were also devastated by Black Death and foreign invasions, but elements of civic culture remained.
• Communities based on mutual assistance, common defense and economic coopera-tion sprung up as history moved out of the Dark Ages.
• “credit”
• So, the northern and southern regions of Italy followed a drastically different path of history in their development.
• Briefly, all the elements of the north-ern civic culture remained - as particu-larly well exemplified by rapid devel-opments of mutual aid societies, co-operatives, and the labor unions. Meanwhile, the South remained just as well hierarchical in structure as they always have been.
Chapter 6. Social Capital and Insti-tutional Success
• Dilemmas of Collective Action- Game theories- Absence of mutual commitment- Trust- The leviathan
Social Capital, Trust, and Rotating Credit Associations
• Social capital = TRUST, norms, and networks, that can improve the effi-ciency of society by facilitating coor-dinated actions.
• A rotating credit association
Norms of Reciprocity and Networks of Civic Engagement
• Social norms, when an action has ex-ternalities for others.
• Reciprocity is of two sorts, sometimes called “balanced” (or specific) and “generalized” (or diffuse).
• Effective Norm of Reciprocity=dense networks of social exchange.
• Interpersonal communication (hori-zontal, vertical and mixed)
Networks of Civil Engage-ment
• Four side effects:1) Increase the potential costs to a de-
fector.2) Foster robust norms of reciprocity.3) Facilitate communication and im-
prove the flow of information.4) Embody past success at collaboration
and promote future collaboration.
History and Institutional Perfor-mance: Two Social Equilibria
• Case of America• South America: - Tradition of hierarchical- Catholic culture- Familism- Exploitation• North America:- Decentralization- Civism- English patrimony
Critique
• Associations could be temporary (?)• Only one case • Exclusion of some Organizations
Thank you!