CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 14,037Social Capital and NetworksPolitical Theory and DemocracyElectoral Systems and Political Participation

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 18 of the 18 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital

Putnam, Robert D·1995·Journal of Democracy
DOI 10.1353/jod.1995.0002
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital Robert D. Putnam (bio) Many students of the new democracies that have emerged over the past decade and a half have emphasized the importance of a strong and active civil society to the consolidation of democracy. Especially with regard to the postcommunist countries, scholars and democratic activists alike have lamented the absence or obliteration of traditions of independent civic engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive reliance on the state. To those concerned with the weakness of civil societies in the developing or postcommunist world, the advanced Western democracies and above all the United States have typically been taken as models to be emulated. There is striking evidence, however, that the vibrancy of American civil society has notably declined over the past several decades. Ever since the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the United States has played a central role in systematic studies of the links between democracy and civil society. Although this is in part because trends in American life are often regarded as harbingers of social modernization, it is also because America has traditionally been considered unusually “civic” (a reputation that, as we shall later see, has not been entirely unjustified). When Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s, it was the Americans’ propensity for civic association that most impressed him as the key to their unprecedented ability to make democracy work. “Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition,” [End Page 65] he observed, “are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types—religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.” 1 Recently, American social scientists of a neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evidence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on the varying economic attainments of different ethnic groups in the United States has demonstrated the importance of social bonds within each group. These results are consistent with research in a wide range of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of social networks for job placement and many other economic outcomes. Meanwhile, a seemingly unrelated body of research on the sociology of economic development has also focused attention on the role of social networks. Some of this work is situated in the developing countries, and some of it elucidates the peculiarly successful “network capitalism” of East Asia. 2 Even in less exotic Western economies, however, researchers have discovered highly efficient, highly flexible “industrial districts” based on networks of collaboration among workers and small entrepreneurs. Far from being paleoindustrial anachronisms, these dense interpersonal and interorganizational networks undergird ultramodern industries, from the high tech of Silicon Valley to the high fashion of Benetton. The norms and networks of civic engagement also powerfully affect the performance of representative government. That, at least, was the central conclusion of my own 20-year, quasi-experimental study of subnational governments in different regions of Italy. 3 Although all these regional governments seemed identical on paper, their levels of effectiveness varied dramatically. Systematic inquiry showed that the quality of governance was determined by longstanding traditions of civic engagement (or its absence). Voter turnout, newspaper readership, membership in choral societies and football clubs—these were the hallmarks of a successful region. In fact, historical analysis suggested that these networks of organized reciprocity and civic solidarity, far from being an epiphenomenon of socioeconomic modernization, were a precondition for it. No doubt the mechanisms through which civic engagement and social connectedness produce such results—better schools, faster economic [End Page 66] development, lower crime, and more effective government—are multiple and complex. While these briefly recounted findings require further confirmation and perhaps qualification, the...

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1353/jod.1995.0002

Cites

18 of 18 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 18 references

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 601–700 of 1,029

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Putnam, R. D.
Corresponding author
Putnam, Robert D
Venue
Journal of Democracy
Publisher
Project MUSE
Published
1995-01
Volume
6
Issue
1
Pages
65-78
ISSN
  • 1045-5736 (ISSN-L)
  • 1086-3214
DOI
10.1353/jod.1995.0002
OpenAlex
W2157619495
Cited by
14,037
References
18
Citations by year
2026: 243 · 2025: 290 · 2024: 389 · 2023: 406 · 2022: 475 · 2021: 763 · 2020: 548 · 2019: 649 · 2018: 666 · 2017: 613 · 2016: 612 · 2015: 680 · 2014: 734 · 2013: 685 · 2012: 631
FWCI
483.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Journal of democracy (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Capital and Networks
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
Keywords
social capital, civil society, citizen participation, social networks, social norms, Alexis de Tocqueville, social bonds, social capital theory

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review