Patterns of Social Capital: Stability and Change in Historical Perspective.

van der Linden, Marcel

edited by Robert I. Rotberg. Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2001. viii, 394 pp. $54.95 U.S. (cloth), $18.95 U.S. (paper).

In recent years, Robert D. Putnam has become one of the United States's most influential political scientists. His book on Italy, Making Democracy Work (1993), written with the assistance of Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti, mainly argued two things. First, that there is something called "social capital," that is embodied in trust, norms, and horizontal networks of civic engagement and that fosters economic growth and effective public institutions. Second, that this "social capital" bas deep historical roots that can be traced back hundreds of years. After having applied this theory to the United States and having warned his readers that "America's social capital" is in decline, Putnam temporarily gained access to the White House.

Helped by Putnam and his supporters "social capital" bas become a rather popular concept, though it is no less vague than its siblings "symbolic capital" and "cultural capital." The term was not invented by Putnam--Glenn Loury seems to have coined it in the late 1970s and James Coleman gave it a push with his book Foundations of Social Theory (1990)--but his writings made it widely known. Some historians find it useful because it focuses attention on aspects of social and political life that had been neglected for too long. The thirteen essays included in this volume are all devoted to Putnam's approach; rive essays deal with early modern Europe, seven with British America and the United States, and one with East Asia.

Reading these essays, two questions seem to be of special importance: (i) how helpful is the notion of "social capital" for historians; and (ii) does Putnam's theory of civic traditions make sense? As for the first question, nobody seems to know exactly what "social capital" is. Some authors do not mind. Raymond Grew, for instance, calls the term "temptingly residual" and "somewhat circular," but he adds: "If social capital were sharply defined, the term would be less usefully suggestive" (p. 69). Other contributors are more critical. Marjorie K. McIntosh considers the concept as "at best a blunt analytical tool," because it focuses on wider social and political developments and therefore "is not ideally suited to the study of informal women's networks" (p. 141). Jack P. Greene suggests an expanded usage, replacing "social capital" by "social and cultural capital" (p. 154), while Lucian W. Pye believes that an understanding of "the basic essentials for stable, pluralistic democracy" requires "going beyond Putnam's conceptual framework" (p. 376). Elisabeth S. Clemens's warning seems to be appropriate: she calls "social capital" a fruitful, but dangerous metaphor that may become "positively misleading" (p. 247).

The second question is perhaps more important. Many contributors are critical of Putnam's theory. Gene Brucker and Edward Muir focus on Putnam's crucial "case" (Medieval and Renaissance Italy), and both authors conclude that Putnam is a great simplifier. Muir accuses Putnam of "a peculiarly American reconstruction of Italian history" that "prizes the Italian past only insofar as it can be shown to lead to the triumph of republican institutions and democratic," thereby overlooking the fact that the first communes in Italy "were certainly not democracies," but a kind of mutual defence pact that generally "collapsed in distrust and violence, were absorbed by more powerful cities, or succumbed to petty tyrants" (p. 42). Brucker suggests as well that Putnam's picture of the civic culture of communal Italy "neglects the darker side of that world" but, more importantly, he also strongly doubts if the civic values of the communal age survived centuries of invasion, foreign domination, absolutist government, and a hierarchical social order--to be revived and rejuvenated in the twentieth century. "The most potent and influential legacy received by post-revolutionary Italy was not a civic tradition inherited from the communal era but the structures and patterns developed during the 'age of absolutism'" (p. 38).

But Putnam is also criticized from other angles. Several contributors argue that Putnam's approach is too narrow. A case in point is Mary Ryan, who in her fundamental chapter on associational life in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco 1825-60, establishes that social capital is "too blunt a measure to gauge the vitality and extent of democratic politics." She convincingly shows, that at least three additional factors are necessary: social inclusion, genuine participation, and power to affect the public realm.

All in all, this book does not leave Putnam's approach unscathed. But there is more. Although one chapter is somewhat embarrassing (I mean Lucian Pye's opinionated and superficial essay on the foundations for democracy in East and Southeast Asia), the large majority of the contributions have much to offer, even to those who have no special interest in Putnam's theory. Most chapters can stand on their own feet and present important case studies of social networks in the past. A fine example is the longest chapter in the collection on "The Growth of Voluntary Associations in America, 1840-1940." It was written by Gerald Gamm and Robert Putnam himself, and contains surprising insights. The authors show, among many other things, that "small cities and towns, especially those with low levels of population growth," were "the strongholds of American associational life" in the period under consideration (p. 176). Obviously, inadequate theorizing does not rule out good empirical research.

Marcel van der Linden
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam