Critical review of Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work

Résumé du document

In the 1970s, new representative institutions were created in the twenty regions that make up Italy. The Italian government wanted to bring governance closer to the people, so that 'the citizens of Seveso and Pietrapertosa were now directed to nearby Milan and Potenza rather than distant Rome'. Putnam is very enthusiastic, as this institutional creation represents an 'unparalleled opportunity' to have 'a comparative study of the dynamics and ecology of institutional development'. However, Putnam probably did not expect back in 1970 that he would draw from the Italian cases conclusions that could have a significant importance for the development of third world countries. I will start the review of his book by examining the design of Putnam's research. I will then follow his arguments and his findings, before finally critically assess his work with the help of other scholars.

Extraits

[...] At first his research question was focused upon 'the conditions for creating strong, responsive, effective representative institutions'[3]. For that he considered the Italian case as an 'unparalleled opportunity for addressing'[4] this issue. However he soon shifted his main objective to the examination of 'institutional performance' among the different regions of Italy, meaning the efficiency of the regions to address the public interest. He starts with three hypotheses, first, 'institutions shape politics'[5] by 'structuring political behaviour'[6]. Second, 'institutions are shaped by history'[7], according to the path dependency explanation. [...]

[...] It is important to notice once again that the methodological instruments used to create those indicators are numerous and diversified, ranging from statistics on the number of different cabinets to rate the stability, to the author's own point of view to rate reform legislation. His findings are quite impressive. He realized that there are very sharp discrepancies among the different regions. The institutional performance of regions in the north and centre of the country is much higher than the one of regions in the south. [...]

[...] He will use a quasi-experimental design to evaluate his dependent variable. He will indeed compare the institutional performance of different units of observation - namely the twenty regions - that have not been exposed to the same extent to his independent variable 'civicness'. All twenty regions are concerned by the research, but Putnam will especially focus on six of them: he chooses the most suitable observation units. From a pure methodological point of view, he uses what David Laitin call a 'triangulation' approach, with statistics, formal theory and historical analysis[9]. [...]

[...] 'Good government in Italy is a by-product of singing groups and soccer clubs'[30]. He also links game theories to the concept of social capital[31]. Indeed, due to the tradition in the South of vertical relations between people, Putnam can affirm the 'History has taught southern Italians the improbability of the Hobbesian solution to the dilemma of collective action'[32]. While in the North people have been 'training' for centuries to trust each other and to find collective solutions to dilemma such as the prisoner's dilemma, traditions in the South avoid people from doing the same. [...]

[...] Bibliography Boix, Carles and Posner, Daniel, S., Making Social Capital Work, Harvard University Paper 96-4, June 1996, on http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/96-04.pdf Fienberg, Howard, A Review of Making Democracy Work, on http://www.hfienberg.com/irtheory/putnam.html Fisher, Maverick, Putnam: Making Democracy Work Review, on http://www.la.utexas.edu/chenry/civil/archives95/csspapers/0006.html Laitin, David D., 'The Civic Culture at in American Political Science Review, Vol.89, March 1995 LaPalombara, Joseph, 'Review: Making Democracy Work', in Political Science Quarterly, Vol.108, Autumn 1993 Maraffi, Marco, 'Review: Making Democracy Work', in The American Journal of Sociology, Vol.99, March 1994 Morlino, Leonardo, 'Italy's Civic Divide', in Journal of Democracy, Vol.6, Putnam, Robert D., Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press 1993) Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey), p.5 Ibid., p.6 Idem. Idem. Idem. Ibid. p7 Idem. [...]