Robert D. Putnam

This article is about the political scientist. For the Woody Norris associate, see Woody Norris § Key associates.
Robert D. Putnam

Putnam in 2006
Born Robert David Putnam
(1941-01-09) January 9, 1941
Rochester, New York
Alma mater Yale University
Swarthmore College
Institutions Harvard University
University of Michigan
Main interests
 Political science
Notable ideas
 Bowling Alone

Robert David Putnam (born January 9, 1941 in Rochester, New York[1]) is a political scientist and Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, and was formerly a visiting professor and director of the Manchester Graduate Summer Programme in Social Change, University of Manchester (UK). Putnam developed the influential two-level game theory that assumes international agreements will only be successfully brokered if they also result in domestic benefits. His most famous (and controversial) work, Bowling Alone, argues that the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life (social capital) since the 1960s, with serious negative consequences.[2] In 2010, he co-published an article in which he noted that the trend had moved the other way; he continued to advocate a push towards more social capital but he felt his famous thesis ("Americans are now bowling alone") was no longer true.[3] In March 2015, he published a book called Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis that looked at issues of inequality of opportunity in the US.[4]

Background

Born in 1941, Putnam grew up in Port Clinton, Ohio where he participated in a competitive bowling league as a teenager.[5] Putnam graduated from Swarthmore College in 1963 where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity, won a Fulbright Fellowship to study at Balliol College, Oxford, and went on to earn master's and doctorate degrees from Yale University, the latter in 1970. He taught at the University of Michigan until going to Harvard in 1979, where he has held a variety of positions, including Dean of the Kennedy School, and is currently the Malkin Professor of Public Policy. Putnam was raised as a religiously observant Methodist. In 1963, Putnam married his wife Rosemary, a special education teacher and French horn player.[5] Around the time of his marriage, he converted to Judaism, his wife's religion.[6]

"Making Democracy Work"

His first work in the area of social capital was Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, a comparative study of regional governments in Italy which drew great scholarly attention for its argument that the success of democracies depends in large part on the horizontal bonds that make up social capital.[7] Putnam writes that northern Italy's history of community, guilds, clubs, and choral societies led to greater civic involvement and greater economic prosperity.[8] Meanwhile, the agrarian society of Southern Italy is less prosperous economically and democratically because of less social capital. Social capital, which Putnam defines as "networks and norms of civic engagement," allows members of a community to trust one another.[9] When community members trust one another, trade, money-lending, and democracy flourish.

"Bowling Alone"

In 1995 he published '"Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital" in the Journal of Democracy. The article was widely read and garnered much attention for Putnam, including an invitation to meet with then-President Bill Clinton and a spot in the pages of People. Some critics argued that Putnam was ignoring new organizations and forms of social capital; others argued that many of the included organizations were responsible for the suppression of civil rights movements and the reinforcement of anti-egalitarian social norms. Over the last decade and a half, the United States had seen an increase in bowlers but a decrease in bowling leagues.

In 2000, he published Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, a book-length expansion of the original argument, adding new evidence and answering many of his critics. Though he measured the decline of social capital with data of many varieties, his most striking point was that many traditional civic, social and fraternal organizations — typified by bowling leagues — had undergone a massive decline in membership while the number of people bowling had increased dramatically.

Putnam makes a distinction between two kinds of social capital: bonding capital and bridging capital. Bonding occurs when you are socializing with people who are like you: same age, same race, same religion, and so on. But in order to create peaceful societies in a diverse multi-ethnic country, one needs to have a second kind of social capital: bridging. Bridging is what you do when you make friends with people who are not like you, like supporters of another football team. Putnam argues that those two kinds of social capital, bonding and bridging, do strengthen each other. Consequently, with the decline of the bonding capital mentioned above inevitably comes the decline of the bridging capital leading to greater ethnic tensions.

In 2016, Putnam explained his inspiration for the book, by saying, "We’ve [Americans] been able to run a different kind of society. A less statist society, a more free-market society, because we had real strength in the area of social capital and we had relatively high levels of social trust. We sort of did trust one another, not perfectly, of course, but we did. Not compared to other countries. And all that is declining, and I began to worry, 'Well, gee, isn’t that going to be a problem, if our system is built for one kind of people and one kind of community, and now we’ve got a different one. Maybe it’s not going to work so well.'"[10]

Critics such as sociologist Claude Fischer argue that (a) Putnam concentrates on organizational forms of social capital, and pays much less attention to networks of interpersonal social capital; (b) Putnam neglects the emergence of new forms of supportive organizations on and off the Internet; and (c) the 1960s are a misleading baseline because the era had an unusually high number of traditional organizations.

Since the publication of Bowling Alone, Putnam has worked on efforts to revive American social capital, notably through the Saguaro Seminar, a series of meetings among academics, civil society leaders, commentators, and politicians to discuss strategies to re-connect Americans with their communities. These resulted in the publication of the book and website, Better Together, which provides case studies of vibrant and new forms of social capital building in the United States

Diversity and trust within communities

In recent years, Putnam has been engaged in a comprehensive study of the relationship between trust within communities and their ethnic diversity. His conclusion based on over 40 cases and 30,000 people within the United States is that, other things being equal, more diversity in a community is associated with less trust both between and within ethnic groups. Although limited to American data, it puts into question both the contact hypothesis and conflict theory in inter-ethnic relations. According to conflict theory, distrust between the ethnic groups will rise with diversity, but not within a group. In contrast, contact theory proposes that distrust will decline as members of different ethnic groups get to know and interact with each other. Putnam describes people of all races, sex, socioeconomic statuses, and ages as "hunkering down," avoiding engagement with their local community—both among different ethnic groups and within their own ethnic group. Even when controlling for income inequality and crime rates, two factors which conflict theory states should be the prime causal factors in declining inter-ethnic group trust, more diversity is still associated with less communal trust.

Lowered trust in areas with high diversity is also associated with:

Putnam published his data set from this study in 2001[11][12] and subsequently published the full paper in 2007.[13]

Putnam has been criticized for the lag between his initial study and his publication of his article. In 2006, Putnam was quoted in the Financial Times as saying he had delayed publishing the article until he could "develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity" (quote from John Lloyd of Financial Times).[14] In 2007, writing in City Journal, John Leo questioned whether this suppression of publication was ethical behavior for a scholar, noting that "Academics aren’t supposed to withhold negative data until they can suggest antidotes to their findings."[15] On the other hand, Putnam did release the data in 2001 and publicized this fact.[16] The proposals that the paper contains are located in a section called "Becoming Comfortable with Diversity" at the end of his article. This section has been criticized for lacking the rigor of the preceding sections. According to Ilana Mercer "Putnam concludes the gloomy facts with a stern pep talk".[17]

In 2007 he briefly met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to discuss the role of civil society in the Libyan political context.[18]

Recognition

Memberships and fellowships

He has been a member of both Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Sigma Kappa since 1963, the International Institute of Strategic Studies since 1986, the American Philosophical Society since 2005 and the National Academy of Sciences since 2001. He has been a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1980 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy from 2001 and was a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, 1989 – 2006 and Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1974–75 and 1988-89. Other fellowships included the Guggenheim 1988-89; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 1977 and 1979; Fulbright 1964-65 and 1977; SSRC-ACLS 1966-68; Ford Foundation, 1970; German Marshall Fund, 1979; SSRC-Fulbright, 1982; SSRC-Foreign Policy Studies, 1988–89 and was made a Harold Lasswell Fellow by the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Robert Putnam was a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations 1977-1978 and a member since 1981. He was a member of the Trilateral Commission from 1990 to 1998.[19] He was the President of the American Political Science Association (2001–2002).[20] He had been Vice-President 1997-98.[21]

Awards

In 2004 the President of the Italian Republic made him a Commendatore of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity. He was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 2006 and a Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal by the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2003, He was a Marshall Lecturer at the University of Cambridge in 1999 and was honored with the Ithiel de Sola Pool Award and Lectureship of the American Political Science Association.[19]

He has received honorary degrees from Stockholm University (in 1993), Ohio State University (2000), University of Antwerp (also 2000), University of Edinburgh (2003) LUISS Guido Carli University (2011).[22][23]

In 2013, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama for "deepening our understanding of community in America."[24]

In 2015, he was awarded the University of Bologna, ISA Medal for Science for research activities characterized by excellence and scientific value.

Published works

References

  1. ↑ "ROBERT D. PUTNAM Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). The Finnish Children and Youth Foundation. March 2006. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  2. ↑ Marc Parry, "Can Robert Putnam Save the American Dream" Chronicle of Higher Education, March 12, 2015 Chronicle Review
  3. ↑ "Still Bowling Alone? The Post-9/11 Split" (PDF). Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "Press release on book release". robertdputnam.com. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  5. 1 2 Louis Uchitelle (May 6, 2000). "Lonely Bowlers, Unite: Mend the Social Fabric; A Political Scientist Renews His Alarm At the Erosion of Community Ties" (Book review). The New York Times. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  6. ↑ The Forward, Robert Putnam Assays Religious Tolerance From a Unique Angle, Accessed 11-26-2010
  7. ↑ Princeton University Press website, , Accessed 3-22-2016
  8. ↑ Putnam, Robert (Spring 1993). "What makes democracy work?". National Civic Review 82: 101–106.
  9. ↑ Putnam, Robert (Spring 1993). "What makes democracy work?". National Civic Review: 105.
  10. ↑ http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/robert-d-putnam/
  11. ↑ "Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, 2000". Public Opinion Archives. Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Archived from the original on 21 February 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  12. ↑ Hendrix, Anastasia (1 March 2001). "Fewer In S.F. Attend Church / Survey says South Bay people busiest working". The San Francisco Chronicle (Hearst Corporation). Archived from the original on 16 September 2011.
  13. ↑ Putnam, Robert D. (June 2007). "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and community in the twenty-first century". Scandinavian Political Studies (Wiley) 30 (2): 137–174. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007.00176.x. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture.
  14. ↑ Lloyd, John (October 8, 2006). "Study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity". The Financial Times (London: The Nikkei). Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  15. ↑ Leo, John (June 25, 2007). "Bowling with our own". City Journal (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research).
  16. ↑ Harvard Community Survey Results
  17. ↑ Mercer, Ilana (July 22, 2007). "Greater diversity equals more misery". Orange County Register (Freedom Communications).
  18. ↑ Putnam, Robert D. (February 26, 2011). "With Libya's Megalomaniac 'Philosopher-King'". The Wall Street Journal (News Corp).
  19. 1 2 ROBERT D. PUTNAM Curriculum Vitae March 2006 p.2
  20. ↑ APSA Presidents: 1903 to Present
  21. ↑ ROBERT D. PUTNAM Curriculum Vitae March 2006 p.3
  22. ↑ .
  23. ↑ ROBERT D. PUTNAM Curriculum Vitae March 2006 p.1
  24. ↑ President Obama to Award 2012 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Whitehouse.gov, retrieved 30 June 2013
  25. ↑ Aronowitz, Nona Willis (11 March 2015). "Our Kids by Robert Putnam review – stark portrait of trials facing millenials". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 April 2015. Our Kids by Robert Putnam review – stark portrait of trials facing millenials
  26. ↑ David Hugh Smith (March 12, 2015). "'Our Kids' suggests an American dream out of reach for many". The Christian Science Monitor. With regard to schools, he recommends recruiting better teachers and extending school hours to offer more enriching activities. Furthermore, he argues for strengthening vocational and apprenticeship training for non-college-bound young people.

External links

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