Book Description
Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970 when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and health services, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity.
Customer Reviews:
"Civic-ness" and Democracy.......2006-08-31
In the early 1970s, political power was decentralized in Italy. The power once held by the central government in Rome was reallocated to the newly created regional governments. Constitutionally, the regions possessed similar political institutions. However, the regions varied socially, economically and in political context. Putnam, seeing a ready laboratory for social science, chose to study the role of environmental factors on institutional performance in the new regional governments. Institutions serve as Putnam's independent variable, while a number of environmental factors act as the dependent variables. As such three main research questions emerged; 1) how does institutional change affect identity, power, and strategy of the regional political actors, 2) how is institutional performance a function of history, and lastly 3) which features of social context most powerfully affect institutional performance (8).
In examining the institutional impacts on identity, power, and strategy of regional politicos, Putnam builds upon the "new institutionalism" proposed by March and Olsen. According to the new institutional paradigm: intuitions reshape the identities of political actors, redistribute political power, and instill new norms for political behavior. Putnam argues that the identity of regional political actors has evolved to create a system in which actors experience an "ideological depolarization." Party identity has become less extreme and regional politicians have taken a more centrist stance than their counterparts in the central government. This has lead regional politicos to develop a more accepting attitude of rival parties and a system of consensus in which inter-party conflict has been replaced by cooperation. The author argues that such changes in political identity occurred due to the institutional structure of the regional governments. As regional institutions became more developed, regional actors saw loyalty to regional constituents as more important than party loyalty. As such, pragmatism replaced ideology in regional politics (39).
In addition, the institutional changes reshaped the distribution of political resources. Putnam says that once institutions are in place, they create their own momentum. With political actors gaining more autonomy from the central authority, regional leaders began to form coalitions and demand greater recognition and power from the government in Rome. As such, the distribution of political power was changed so that an increasing amount of control fell to the regional government.
Also, the changes in institutional structures at the regional level caused changes to the political norms previously held by the regional constituents. First, because of the decentralization of power, the constituents and regional politicos are closer in proximity, which made regional politics, "hands-on, face-to-face." Politicians became more administratively motivated than politically motivated. In addition to the close proximity, regional actors adopted more democratic sentiments and less elitist views of governing. They became more concerned with regional issues than vying for political power at the national level. Such a relationship has lead to an increased legitimacy for regional governments. Still, the efficiency of the Italian regional governments is relative. Putnam writes, "Popular legitimacy of new institutions, even successful ones, grows only gradually" (60).
In addition to examining the impact of institutions on political actors, Putnam seeks to examine the relative performance of the new regional institutions. In order to test institutional performance, Putnam looks at two areas, responsiveness to constituents and the efficiency in conducting the business of the public. The author divides the indicators of institutional effectiveness into three broad spheres: policy process, policy pronouncement, and policy implementation. Policy process examines the institution's decision making process. Policy pronouncement examines the government's ability to recognize social needs and offer solutions, and policy implementation serves as a measure of the ability of the regional government to implement policy in the major sectors of activity. In Putnam's study it was unsurprisingly discovered that effectiveness and responsiveness as measures of institutional performance are closely related. In measuring performance, Putnam discovered that although institutionally the same, some regions performed better than others. Putnam attempts to explain the differences between institutional performance through an examination of regional socioeconomic modernity (economic growth following the industrial revolution) and civic community ("civic involvement and social solidarity") 83. Although Putnam readily admits that those regions which had a "head start" economically, most notably those regions in the north, are likely to have more efficient institutional performance than their southern neighbors, socioeconomic factors may not explain the whole story of performance difference. Rather, Putnam concentrates on the development of civic community as a catalyst for successful institutional performance.
A healthy civic community, according to Putnam, is a driving force behind a successful democratic government. In his description, Putnam sees four main themes that accompany civic community: civic engagement, political equality, solidarity/trust/tolerance, and associations. Civic engagement includes active political participation by members of the community. Members of the civic group must be interested in public affairs and be willing to work towards better the community as a whole. Political equality also is imperative for a healthy civic society. According to Putnam, a civic society with political equality is characterized by a horizontal power structure, one in which all parties are equal, as opposed to a hierarchical structure in which patronage and dependency are prominent. In the realm of individual and group interactions in the civic society, actors must have a sense of solidarity, trust, and tolerance. The author readily admits that the civic community will be far from conflict-free, but so long as participating parties maintain the premises of solidarity, trust, and tolerance, negotiation and comprise will occur, hopefully promoting a utilitarian sense of good.
Putnam calls the aggregation of civic engagement, political equality, solidarity/trust, and associations, and region's "civic-ness." Regions with a high level of "civic-ness" are less apt to have constituents who use a preference voting ballot, are more likely to turnout for referendum voting, read newspapers, and have a large variety of civic associations. In addition, Putnam discovers that constituents in regions with a higher level of civic-ness experience a greater trust and contentment with their governments. The author finds that those living in a region with a strong civic group have a greater trust in their elected officials, feel a good deal of participation in the political process, and that political leaders are genuinely concerned with the well-being of the populous. As such, Putnam argues that regions with greater "civic-ness" have a better quality of democracy than their less civic counterparts.
In developing a sense of "civic-ness" the problem of collective action may emerge. Putnam proposes a number of solutions to the collective action problem. First, Putnam builds upon the "soft" solutions proposed by Robert Bates. Such solutions include community development and creating a sense of trust between citizens. Putnam proposes increasing community development through the promotion of human capital development. The author argues that investments in social capital help alleviate collective action problems. Like monetary capital, once an investment in human capital occurs, social capital will grow exponentially. He writes, "Other sources of social capital, too, such as social norms and networks increase with use and diminish with disuse" (170). As such, in order for a sense of "civic-ness," and subsequently, effective and equitable institutions to emerge, first an investment of social capital must occur.
A Classic Text of Modern Political Science.......2005-11-21
Robert Putnam's work has become a Political Science classic. His work is part of new area of research -- civic participation. During the past decade, this area has exploded from obscurity twenty years ago to being one of the most popular fields today. Putnam's works have had a profound impact on many other areas in the Political Science world, from local governance to international political theory. Regardless of whether you agree with his theories, if you are at all interested in Political Science, it is a must read. Moreover, either "Marking Democracy Work" or "Bowling Alone" are becoming standard texts used in most 100 & 200 level undergraduate courses.
trite conclusions, flawed methodology... but engaging prose.......2002-04-04
It's unfortunate that given the opportunity and resources to study the birth and development of regional government in Italy over the course of twenty years, the best conclusions Putnam was able to draw from his observations are hackneyed paraphrases from Tocqueville. Most of his most careful fieldwork yields results that are stultifyingly obvious; and it's hard not to think that his questions and indicators were not deliberately chosen to demonstrate foregone conclusions. Probably most irritating to me is Putnam's irresponsible use of history as a tool for proving continuities that are largely imaginary.
That said, Making Democracy Work is not a boring read, and its flaws at least encourage the reader to contemplate the million ways the book and the study it describes might have been better.
Beginning in 1977, Putnam and his colleagues studied the performance and reception of the 15 regional governments that had been first established in 1970. Given pre-existing disparities among the regions -- economic, cultural, political, demographic, nevermind linguistic and geographic -- it's little surprise that the researchers found that not all the regional governments developed the same way. While he found that the 'institutional socialization' of the new parliamentary bodies had a consistently positive effect on the regional politicians' growing professionalism and willingness to explore constructive compromises with ideological opponents, the governments were not uniformly effective or responsive, nor were their constituents uniformly happy with their efforts.
Ruling out economics as a determining factor in these disparities (through a series of statistical negotiations that show an appalling lack of understanding about basic economics), and drawing heavily from Tocqueville's ideas about the mystical cultural underpinnings for successful democracy, Putnam constructed a 'civic community index' -- a list of indicators including newspaper readership, membership in associations, and what might be called 'enlightened' (abstract, issue-oriented) versus 'parochial' (personal) voting patterns. Again, it's small surprise that he finds a close correlation between the regions' scores on this index and their constituents' relative satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their regional governments.
Trying to explain why this might be so, Putnam then launches into a heavily simplified -- at times almost fanciful -- exposition of 1,000 years of Italian history in which somehow economic development patterns, demographics, religious institutions, and systems of political organization experience enormous changes while cultural traditions of 'civic-ness' remain more or less consistent, wonderfully cohering to the boundaries described by the modern regions and their scores on Putnam's civic community index. He concludes that habits die hard -- whether these be 'good' habits of mutual trust and social reciprocity or 'bad' habits of atomistic self-interest and traditionalist dependency -- and that the effects of institutional change on social and cultural norms is gradual, perhaps so gradual as to be almost imperceptible within a single lifetime.
Stopping just a hair's breadth short of claiming that culture determines economic and political success in the modern world, Putnam does the next worst thing, which is to give credit for present-day disparities in wealth and power to 'historical trends' in cultural development that don't bear close examination by anyone even slightly familiar with Italian history. For example, given Putnam's assessment of the disparity between North/Central Italy (very civic) and the 'amoral' South (terribly un-civic), the first with its innovative and republican cultural of mutual trust and democracy, the second with its stubbornly backward vertical social hierarchies, one could be forgiven for imagining that the South must certainly have been the base of support for Italian fascism in the 30s and 40s -- while in fact it was the gloriously civic-minded North that provided Mussolini with his most consistent support.
On the surface, there's nothing wrong with Putnam's basic political belief -- that democracy is strongest when it's built on a foundation of social reciprocity and trust, civic engagement, etc. My criticism shouldn't be taken as a condemnation of efforts to build or strengthen civil society, or to promote participatory democracy -- far from it! The trouble with Putnam's argument is its methodology, and the pernicious cultural determinism that lurks behind his rhetoric about path-dependent history.
It's NOT the economy, stupid . . . it's civics!.......2001-02-23
The central concept of Putnam's study is "institutions," but he frames these institutions as both an independent and a dependent variable. Positing that institutions shape politics, but institutions themselves are shaped by history, Putnam is able to explain both the causes and the effects of political institutions among Italian regions. The "effects" portion of his study is the lesser of the two in importance; basically, the fact that all Italian regions got identical institutions in 1970, and yet the performance of these institutions varied widely across Italy, sheds much doubt on the questionable theory that formal institutional design itself is a primary determinant of government performance (although most Italians North and South agree that the new regional governments have been a change for the better).
But if institutional design has limited explanatory power, then what other variable can better account for institutional performance? This is the more important half of Putnam's work, for it is where he shows that "social context and history profoundly condition the effectiveness of institutions" (182), by unveiling his more controversial and powerful independent variable: civic culture. What is civic culture? It goes by many names and concepts for Putnam (civic traditions, political culture, civic involvement, social capital, republican virtues) but in its most basic form it is "norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement" (167).
In contrast with the existence of this civic culture in Northern Italy, identified as having a millenium-long pedigree due to the North's highly decentralized political history, Putnam uses the concept of "amoral familism" to characterize the civic culture (or lack thereof) in Southern Italy. Amoral familism implies that reciprocity and engagement are limited to family relations and to vertical networks of hierarchical power alone (in contrast to more participatory and egalitarian horizontal networks in the North), and that all other social relations, as a consequence, are characterized by material self-interest. Tracing the evolution of amoral familism to Southern Italy's monarchical past, Putnam finds that Southern regions have been doomed to institutional failure by their civic legacy, just as the North was guaranteed a relatively easy success by theirs. Putnam summarizes these two divergent starting points as "vicious and virtuous circles that have led to contrasting, path-dependent social equilibria" (180).
To prove this main causal argument, that civic culture determines institutional performance, one would obviously need adequate measures for both civic culture and institutional performance. As evidence of institutional performance, or "good government," Putnam chooses twelve indicators: cabinet stability, budget promptness, statistical and information services, reform legislation, legislative innovation, day care centers, family clinics, industrial policy instruments, agricultural spending capacity, local health unit expenditures, housing and urban development and bureaucratic responsiveness. Putnam then further evaluates the validity of these indicators by surveying both elite and public opinions regarding the institutional performance of their regional governments, to see if the public's perception matches his own.
For evidence of his primary independent variable, civic culture, Putnam proposes four indicators to put his finger on this elusive entity. These indicators are: voluntary associations, newspaper readership, referenda turnout, and (lack of) personalized preference voting. Putnam also correlates these "objective" measures with more opinion-based survey indicators of civic culture.
Most of Putnam's evidence coheres quite well with his causal argument. His quantitative indicators of both institutional performance and civic culture are relatively broad and accurate, with the minor exceptions that would be inherent in any attempt to quantify a complex, multi-dimensional concept like "civic culture". The strong statistical correlations identified by the measurement of his indicators, backed up with corresponding qualitative evidence (some, but not all of it historical), can probably be taken as reliable evidence of a meaningful causal relationship (in Italy) between civic culture and institutional performance. Perhaps the most striking implication of these results is that the ubiquitous relationship between economic development and democracy is actually shown to "disappear" in a statistical sense. In other words, Putnam has controlled for economic development and found that civic culture predicts both democracy and economic development, perhaps even better than economic development itself. This finding, if confirmed in other studies and settings, would obviously topple quite a few of the canonical theories in comparative politics.
Intriguing Thesis - with reservations.......1998-11-08
Putnam's thesis on the importance of social capital in engendering the successful functioning of democracy is an intriguing idea that merits serious reflection in our context today. His study of the community-organizations in Italy, and their effects on the effective workings of democracy on a regional and national level, highlight the importance of civic organizations and their ability to inculcate in their members a sense of civic duty - which consequently leads to a vibrant democracy. This book is perhaps especially fitting in the American context today in light of declining interest in politics, diminishing belief in the efficacy of governing institutions in solving problems, and the general ethos of apathy and frustration felt around the nation in the realm of democracy (something that the most recent election's low voter turnout indicated). Although the study is interesting, the idea is perhaps a little less useful in the pragmatic sense; one could run into the question of a chicken-and-egg scenario where there is a debate between which came first: vibrant democracy or civic organizations. Regardless, the book is one of the best in its subject area and a recommended read for any student interested in such issues.
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State Feminism, Women's Movements, and Job Training: Making Democracies Work in the Global Economy (Women and Politics in Democratic States)
Amy Mazur
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0815334389 |
Book Description
Drawing from the work of internationally renowned scholars from the Research Network on Gender, Politics and the State (RNGS), this study offers in-depth analysis of the relationship between state feminism, women's movements and public policy and places them within a comparative theoretical framework. Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Canada, and the U.S. are all discussed individually.
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Reinventing Accountability: Making Democracy Work for Human Development (International Political Economy)
Anne-Marie Goetz , and
Rob Jenkins
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1403906246
Release Date: 2005-03-24 |
Book Description
A deepening crisis in accountability in developing democracies has triggered much debate on accountability and the mechanisms needed for overcoming deficiencies of democracy. This book analyzes a wide variety of contemporary efforts to reform accountability systems in developing countries. It makes an original contribution to the debate by dealing with a variety of novel approaches to accountability and it combines these approaches in both a systematic and analytic fashion. The book also includes case study material on successful accountability initiatives.
Book Description
These are challenging times for America, and painful times for Americans. It's been years since the public mood has been so dour, the sense of hope for our future so restrained. And yet...this is America. At our core we are a resilient and optimistic nation.
Organized in 8 sections-Community, Children, Citizenship, Values, Charity, Environment, Everyday Living, and The World-this powerful motivational book contains more than 120 simple actions every American can take to make our country a better place, including:
__Simple solutions such as recycling, voting, and volunteering
__Promoting U.S. businesses by buying locally grown produce and supporting community merchants
__Returning to old-fashioned values-politeness, respect, tolerance, and optimism
Small enough to fit in your pocket, this is the perfect motivational gift book to get America on track once again.
Customer Reviews:
Love the book...love the ideas and website suggestions!.......2006-10-27
This book has such simple ideas - some I'd thought about -- many I didn't. Clever, fast, enjoyable read, with so many useful websites I'd never heard of but can definately use! Great ideas for families, too! Highly recommended!!
Just What We Needed!.......2006-10-25
Thanks to Zimmerman for this great and handy guide to helping our country while we help ourselves. This book is a great resource and a great inspiration.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent resource.......2005-09-27
Coming to Public Judgment is the best explanation I have found of how the public engages an issue and comes to a conclusion. I have seen this process work well in my own city, and I wish every journalist covering government, school and social services beats would be required to read this book and organize his or her coverage this way.
Book Description
The decade of the 1980s marked a triumph for market capitalism. As politicians of all stripes sought to reinvent government in the image of private enterprise, they looked to the voluntary sector for allies to assuage the human costs of reductions in public policies of social welfare. This book details the "savage side" of market capitalism in Appalachia and explains the social, political, and economic roles that mediating structures play in mitigating it. Profiling the work of twenty-three such mediating structures—community-based organizations that battled to provide social safety nets, fight environmental assaults, and upgrade the education and job skills of Appalachian residents—Richard Couto distills the practical lessons to be found in their successes and shortcomings.
Couto argues that a broader set of democratic dimensions be used in taking the measure of civil society and public policy in the twenty-first century. He shows that mediating structures promote the democratic prospect of reduced inequality and increased communal bonds when they provide and advocate for new forms and increased amounts of social capital—the public goods and moral resources that we invest in one another as members of a community.
Customer Reviews:
community mediation is essentail for problem-solving.......2007-05-09
Dr. Couto says, "Mediating structures are a prerequisite to democracy. They preserve the liberty of citizens to act on public matters apart form government. They permit their members representation and participation in the sociopolitical arrangements of the neighborhood, community. nation, or state....The test for the democratic nature of mediating structures involves the stringent test of all three elements--liberty, equality, and political action--not only one of the three." With examples drawn from the Appalachia region, community social capital, in his view, are often adequate to meet local decision-making and problem-solving needs, but must be supplemented by outside resources to ensure adequate long-term solutions.
Civil Society and Democracy Need Government Resources.......2001-07-14
This book furthers the general understanding of social capital, civil society, democracy, nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and, to a limited extent, philanthropy.
A primary contribution of this book is a resurrection and development of a different conception of social capital than what Robert Putnam has articulated. Couto elaborates on Robert A. Nisbet's 1962 conception of social capital as including a material base as well as the moral or value base about which Putnam writes.
According to Couto, "Nisbet relates the failure of intermediate associations (family, community, church, and the whole network of informal interpersonal relationships) to provide the psychological and symbolic functions of social capital -- that is, its moral element -- directly to their diminished capacity to perform the material and economic functions of social capital" (identified as "mutual aid, welfare, education, recreation, and economic production and distribution") (p.53).
Borrowing also on Julian Wolpert, Couto says, "People have different amounts of social capital depending on the actual or potential resources, the size of the network to which they are linked, and the amount of economic and cultural capital the members of that network have." And citing Pierre Bourdieu, Couto adds, "Social capital is never independent of the other forms of capital..." (p.62).
The book then proceeds to narrate the stories of 23 community-based "mediating structures" in Appalachia and discuss how they contribute to social capital, civil society and democracy from a regional economic base that is among the poorest in the country.
At first blush, this seems to contradict the theory above. How can this economically impoverished area produce mediating structures that can succeed in adding to social capital (both moral and material)?
And how do the mediating structures promote democracy?
Recognizing that Nisbet, Wolpert and Bourdieu are correct, nevertheless, Couto demonstrates that increases in social capital and democracy are possible through the interventions of mediating structures even in the most economically devastated and politically corrupt areas of our country.
These Appalachian mediating structures ranged from very local organizations -- such as Dungannon Development Commission (VA), Brumley Gap Concerned Citizens (VA) and Bumpass Cove Citizens Group (TN) -- to statewide and regional organizations -- such as West Virginia Primary Care Association, Virginia Black Lung Association and Southern Empowerment Project (TN). They were organized to deal with economic development, environment, health, families and children, housing, human resources, culture and the arts, organizational and leadership development, and broad public policy.
A key factor in the mediating structures' successes (though not all the nonprofit organizations were successful in everything they conceived or undertook) was the ability of the organizations to extract material assistance from local, regional, state and federal governments and occasionally from for-profit businesses.
Sometimes they developed non-controversial partnerships with governments and businesses to add to the material basis of their communities. Sometimes they undertook controversial direct action to challenge unfair corporate or government policies. And sometimes organizations did both. Couto maintains that the dichotomy between "community development" -- which is usually non-controversial partnering -- and "community organizing" -- which is often associated with controversial direct action -- is a false one when considering the activities and achievements of these 23 Appalachian mediating structures.
Viewing these Appalachian nonprofit organizations from another perspective, many of them delivered services to their constituencies. Many advocated for changes in public policies at both the bureaucratic and the legislative levels. And many did both. Couto demonstrates through his narratives about the 23 organizations that the services and advocacy dichotomy is just as false as the community organizing-community development one.
Couto says, "Community-based mediating structures spend a considerable portion of their effort mitigating the worst consequences of a market economy predicated on rugged individualism and unadaptive capitalism. (They) promote the democratic prospect in places where public social welfare policies are most desperately needed" (p.299).
They promote democracy by building self-esteem in individuals who are often patronized for their poverty, illiteracy and poor health. They promote democracy by teasing out larger visions of how the world could be better against a backdrop of corporate rapaciousness and governmental indifference. They deliver services to their members and others in the community which help recruit people to participate in collective action. They promote democracy by organizing the individuals and their visions into collective action -- whether it be community development or direct action. Even when they fail, or when they succeed then fall apart, they promote democracy by having built self-esteem, enabled vision, and gave birth to concepts of collective action, community development and direct action which frequently translate into new organizations and action that are frequently more effective than the earlier incarnations. Everyone who participated in these Appalachian mediating structures was more aware of the possibilities -- and difficulties -- of democracy after their participation.
But at the same time, Couto suggests that these "mediating structures only supplement efforts to redress market failures." (p. 300) They might provide some help in alleviating the problems associated with workers' injuries or stopping the constant destruction of the enviroment by the coal companies, but they cannot make up for the short supply of public goods and services that might provide full recompense for such situations.
Nevertheless, the rich histories of these community-based organizations in Couto's book demonstrate a complex set of political, social and economic roles. In their political roles, the community-based organizations assist their members and their communities to discover the historical, social and economic origins of their conditions and to develop methods of redress. In their social roles, the organizations create the networks that Putnam and others suggest are critical to building social capital. Finally, in their economic roles, the organizations "weave government programs into these networks far more than limited-government advocates understand." (p.299)
While social theorists portray these local organizations as defenses against government intrusion, which they are, they do more than that by leveraging government money to provide goods and services otherwise in short supply, an essential ingredient to their organizational members and communities to both create and expand key social capital networks.
Robert Bothwell is President Emeritus/Senior Fellow of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Washington, DC, USA
The essence of grassroot democracy.......2000-01-02
As the title indicates, this work builds upon (but independant from) Robert Putnum's "Making Democracy Work." In a book both approprate for univeristy level study and laymen alike, Couto presents the subject in three parts. First, Couto provides a well versed lesson in the civic sphere and mediating structures. The middle provides a virtual overkill of sucessfull mediating structures as examples. These examples help the reader understand that the civic sphere isn't some intangable ideal discussed by high-minded professor types, but rather a vital active (and very real) aspect of democracy. The examples lead the reader into the third part where Couto argues that a true and healthy democracy can only be achieved through citizen participation.
Couto focuses upon the central and southern Applachian regions in this work. He shows that if these people historically oppressed by industrial greed, political corruptness and belittling cultural sterotypes can stand up to the tide of Corporate globalism and demand demorcatic justice, then everybody can also. Couto doesn't break new ground, but rather expands upon this very important subject. These are issues addressed by Tocqueville and expanded upon by many great minds since then. Couto has futhered the intellectual pursuit of this concept.
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- A great insight into the preeminent observer of America
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The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America
James T. Schleifer
Manufacturer: Liberty Fund
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0865972052 |
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A great insight into the preeminent observer of America.......2003-05-23
James Schleifer's book gives one a wonderful insight into the mind of one of the great social scientists writing about America and Democracy. From reading the book I deduced that De Tocqueville is a social scientist before Marx! He compares European culture and government with the fledgling culture and democracy he observes in America. He is very much impressed with what he sees taking place in America in the 1830's and hopes it will spread to Europe. He at first believed that America's prosperity was simply due to geography and their distance from powerful neighbors, he abandons this idea after his visit to America. He comes to realize that the West is not being peopled "by new European immigrants to America, but by Americans who he believes have no adversity to taking risks". De Tocqueville comes to see that Americans are the most broadly educated and politically advanced people in the world and one of the reasons for the success of our form of government. He also foretells America's industrial preeminence and strength through the unfettered spread of ideas and human industry.
De Tocqueville also saw the insidious damage that the institution of slavery was causing the country and predicted some 30 years before the Civil War that slavery would probable cause the states to fragment from the union. He also the emergence of stronger states rights over the power of the federal government. He held fast to his belief that the greatest danger to democracy was the trend toward the concentration of power by the federal government. He predicted wrongly that the union would probably break up into 2 or 3 countries because of regional interests and differences. This idea is the only one about America that he gets wrong. Despite some of his misgivings, De Tocqueville, saw that democracy is an "inescapable development" of the modern world. The arguments in the "Federalist Papers" were greater than most people realized. He saw a social revolution coming that continues throughout the world today.
Schleifer in his book ably shows how De Tocqueville realizes at the very beginning of the "industrial revolution" how industry, centralization and democracy strengthened each other and moved forward together. Schleifer's book convinces me that not only is De Tocqueville still the preeminent observer of America but is also the father of social science. As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I find this book is a must read for anyone interested in American history, political philosophy or the social sciences.
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Making Democracy Work: The Life and Letters of Luther Halsey Gulick, 1892-1993
Lyle C. Fitch
Manufacturer: Univ of California Inst of
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ASIN: 0877723710 |
Book Description
Old City Philadelphia is the heart of the City of Brotherly Love, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution written. From the Delaware Indians and early Swedish settlers to the artisans and craftspeople who lived along Elfrethís Alleyóthe oldest residential street in the United Statesóthis town represented the backbone of the new nation until the cityís priorities shifted. As change buffeted the city and the nation, Old City Philadelphia resisted passing into oblivion and recreated itself as a place committed to tradition, craftsmanship, and history that is a residentís, and visitorís, delight. ÝÝ
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