"You tell me how many choral societies there are in an Italian region, and I will tell you plus or minus three days how long it will take you to get your health bills reimbursed by its regional government." (Robert Putnam, Interview, 1995)

A lot has been written in recent times about civil society, social capital, the role of trust, etc, etc.  What's it all about, and how does it relate to other political and economic philosophies?

Essentially, the discussion is about the way social relations and norms affect the quality of life, quality of government and economic welbeing of a society.

The discussion attempts to answer questions such as:

• Why do similar economic systems operate with different degrees of success in different societies?
• Why do similar systems of government operate with different degrees of sucess in different societies?
• Do free enterprise and good social relations help or hinder each other?
• Why are most western societies experiencing high levels of social problems at present, and what can be done about it?

The discussion draws and builds on principles and analytical tools from the fields of economics, sociology, politics and ethics.

The central thesis of most writers in this area is that the way people relate to each other in one-on-one and small group contexts makes a big difference to all of the outcomes mentioned above.  If a society has established patterns of trust, co-operation and social interaction generally, that will result in a more vigorous economy, more democratic and effective government and fewer social problems.

From this, different people have drawn different conclusions about desirable changes to political philosophies or government policies.  Some see it as a way of finding a new direction for political parties "of the left" given the demise of socialism.  Some see it as reinforcing their support for democracy and participation in civic affairs as important ends in themselves.  Others see it as an extension or "super-set" of traditional free market views.

The following is an evolving list of some of the key writers, their works, research findings and arguments:

Writers, findings and arguments

Robert Putnam

Robert Putnam is author of Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) and Bowling Alone:America's Declining Social Capital (Journal of Democracy, January 1995)

His research into provincial government in Italy found a strong correlation between the effectiveness of the provincial government in a region and indicators of the extent to which people participated in voluntary community organisations, and community affairs generally, in that region.

"You tell me how many choral societies there are in an Italian region, and I will tell you plus or minus three days how long it will take you to get your health bills reimbursed by its regional government." (Interview, 1995)

In Bowling Alone Putnam found that in the USA between 1980 and 1993 while there had been a 10% increase in the total number of people who played 10 pin bowling, there had been a 40% decline in the number of persons who bowled as part of organised leagues.  Large declines also occurred in other indicators of "civic engagement".

Putnam also examined historical indicators, and found similar evidence of disengagement in USA between 1865 and 1890, as part of industrialisation, immigration, etc.  Then, between 1890 and 1910, lots of new organisations were formed, such as the YMCA, Red Cross, Boy Scouts and National League of Cities.

Putnam concludes that we are at present going through a similar transformation to the period 1865-1890, due to factors such as television, the global economy and two career families and that we need a new round of reform to reinvent new social organisations.

Putnam has initiated the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, a series of meetings with the mission "To develop a handful of far-reaching, actionable ideas that will significantly increase Americans’ connectedness to one another and to community institutions over the next five years." (First Meeting)

Other writings by Putnam in this area include:
Joseph F. Helliwell and Robert D. Putnam, "Correction: The Strange Disappearance of Civic America," The American Prospect No. 27 (July-Aug 1996)
Michael Schudson, Theda Skocpol, Richard M. Valelly, and Robert Putnam, "Controversy" (Unsolved Mysteries:
The Tocqueville Files) The American Prospect No. 25 (Mar-Apr 1996)
"Who Killed Civic America" Prospect Magazine (UK) (Mar 1996)
"The Strange Disappearance of Civic America" The American Prospect No. 24 (Winter 1996)
"The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life" The American Prospect No.13 (Spring, 1993)

Critiques of, and other articles related to, Putnam's work include:
Ian Schoales, "People Get Ready" Salon (1999)
David Rieff, "The False Dawn of Civil Society" The Nation (Feb 1999)
Jean L. Cohen, "American Civil Society Talk" The Report  (Summer 1998)
Jason Zengerle, "Investing in Social Capital" (Sept 1997)
Andrew Greeley, "The Other Civic America, Religion and Social Capital" The American Prospect No. 32 (May-June 1997)
Ichiro Kawachi, Bruce P. Kennedy, and Kimberly Lochner, "Long Live Community: Social Capital as Public Health," The American Prospect No. 35 (Nov-Dec 1997)
Juliet B. Schor, "Civic Engagement and Working Hours: Do Americans Really Have More Free Time Than Ever Before?" Paper for Conference on Civic Engagement in American Democracy (Sept 26-28, 1997)
Charles Heying, "Civic Elites and Corporate Delocalization: An Alternative Explanation for Declining Civic Engagement" American Behavioral Scientist Vol 40. No.5, (Apr 1997)
Michael W. Foley & Bob Edwards, "The Paradox of Civil Society"Journal of Democracy 7.3 (1996)
William A. Galston, and Alejandro Portes & Patricia Landolt, "Controversy" (Unsolved Mysteries: The Tocqueville Files II) The American Prospect no. 26 (May-June 1996)
Katha Pollitt, "For Whom the Ball Rolls" The Nation (15 Apr 1996)
Robert Samuelson, The 'bowling alone' phenomenon is bunk (Detroit News Editorial, 11 Apr 1996)
William A. Galston, "Won't You Be My Neighbor," The American Prospect No. 26 (May-June 1996)
Alejandro Portes & Patricia Landolt, "The Downside of Social Capital," The American Prospect No. 26 (May-June 1996)
Nicholas Lemann, "Kicking in Groups," The Atlantic Monthly (Apr 1996).

Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama is author of The End of History and the Last Man (1992 - see Introduction), Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995), The End of Order (London: The Social Market Foundation, 1997), The Great Disruption: Human Nature And The Reconstitution Of Social Order (Free Press, 1999 - see details and data) and "Second Thoughts: The Last Man in a Bottle" National Interest (Summer 1999).

In The End of History Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy and markets were the only realistic alternatives for any society hoping to be part of the modern world - that there was an evolutionary logic to human history that would lead the most advanced countries to liberal democracy and markets. In support of "the end of history", Fukuyama argued that

The possibility of such an end depends on the existence of a human anthropology that is grounded in nature. The period since the French Revolution has seen the rise of different doctrines that hoped to overcome the limits of human nature through the creation of a new kind of human being, one that would not be subject to the prejudices and limitations of the past. The collapse of these experiments by the end of the twentieth century showed us the limits of social constructivism, and endorsed a liberal, market-based order grounded in self-evident truths about "Nature and Nature’s God."

However, in Second Thoughts, Fukuyama argues that his original contention in The End of History may be wrong because

...it could be that the tools twentieth-century social constructionists used, from early childhood socialization and psychoanalysis to agitprop and labor camps, were simply too crude to alter effectively the natural substratum of human behavior. The open-ended character of modern natural science suggests that within the next couple of generations we will have knowledge and technologies that will allow us to accomplish what social engineers of the past failed to do. At that point, we will have definitively finished human History because we will have abolished human beings as such. And then, a new, posthuman history will begin.

Other writings and statements by Fukuyama available on-line include:
E-Commerce and the Problem of Trust (Merrill Lynch Forum)
Economic Globalization and Culture (Merrill Lynch Forum)
The Virtual Handshake (Merrill Lynch Forum)
Social Capital and Civil Society (IMF Conference on Second Generation Reforms, Oct 1999)
(Fukuyama's web site also lists his articles, reviews, books and other publications)

Critiques of, and other articles related to, Fukuyama's work available on-line include:
Mackubin Thomas Owens, "What is 'The West'?" The Claremont Institute (1998)
Daryl Koehn, Book Review of Trust The Online Journal of Ethics 1997
Michael Finlay, Overview of Trust (Sept 1996)
Edward Lotterman, Book Review of Trust (Sep 1995)
Robert Clark, Book Review of The Great Disruption (Policy, Spring 1999)