Title: How far is Putnams claim about declining social capital true?

Candidate number: T01436 Word count: 2166

This essay will argue that Putnams claim that social capital is declining is partially true. The evidence that people are far less involved in certain areas is accurate and there is a plethora of sources proving that. However, it can be argued that social capital did not experience a definite decline, but just a shift in where it manifests itself. There has been an increase in associations on the internet or interest groups that address a particular issue in the society like the environment or womens rights. The structure of this essay will be the following: first it will briefly examine the definition of social capital. Second, it will assess Putnams claim on declining social capital and its supporting evidence. Likewise, it will evaluate the validity of Putnams thesis by considering counterarguments from critics. Finally, the paper will conclude that social capital has indeed been declining in certain institutions and organizations. However, since technology plays a far more important role in our lives than it did in 2000, it can be argued that Putnams claim is outdated, and it is simply the case that the trends shifted from one place to another.

Therefore, as mentioned above, we must first look at the definition of social capital. Putnam defines it as societal networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them (Putnam, 2000, p.19). It is important to note that, with the presence of different ways to measure social capital (Bourdieu, 1985; Coleman, 1993; Paxton, 1999), there are disagreements of what it actually means. The assumption that social capital is declining is based on Tocquevilles quote (p.48) who described how close American society used to be. Putnam (2000) then contrasts that in his book with examples from the end of the 1960s onwards and claims that modern society is falling apart. However, when examining this question, it is important to keep in mind certain points. First, one should ask himself whether there is such a thing as social capital and is it measurable. Putnam uses a variety of indicators starting from more formal ones such as voting or political participation (pp. 31-47) to more informal ones like having friends over for dinner or going to picnics (pp. 93115). Burns (2001, p. 3) summarizes these points in Table 1. The issue of measurement is raised by

Krishna and Shrader (1999) who look at empirical evidence of different researchers on this topic and the methods they used to measure social capital. This essay will now examine the evidence that supports the claim that social capital is declining. Thus, as mentioned above, we will now look at the empirical evidence provided by Putnam to support the argument that civic engagement has been in a gradual decline since the 1960s. In Chapter 2 Putnam presents evidence of decline in voter turnout: in 1960, 62,8% voted in the election between Kennedy and Nixon, while only 48,9% voted in 1996 (pp. 31-32). This shows a decrease of the publics engagement with politics. Additionally, the drop in peoples interests with political events can be observed in the decline of TV news viewership from 52% to 41% from 1965 to 1990 (p. 37). In this book, groups such as Parent Teacher Association (PTA), the Red Cross, or even Boy Scouts are also considered as examples of formal social capital building. The PTA, for example, lost 500,000 members in the period of 1990 to 1997 although the number of families with children under eighteen grew by over 2 million and public school enrollment grew by over 5 million (p.56). Union membership is another area that Putnam looks at. As evidence of declining membership in this associations which subsequently leads to decline in social capital, the author writes that between 1953 and 1997, unions recorded a decline in members of 62% in manufacturing, 79% in the mining sector, 78% within construction, 60% within the transport industry, and 40% within the service sector (p. 82). The author sees this as a clear example of a decrease in what he sees as indicators of social capital. Additionally, Putnam looks at membership of churches and church groups. He explains their importance by saying that: churches provide an important incubator for civic skills, civic norms, community interests, and civic recruitment (p. 66). However, evidence suggests that church going declined by 20% between 1957 and 1976 (p.70). This adds weight to the argument that people are far less engaged in communal or group activities, which eventually leads to an overall disengagement in society. However, this decline in church attendance can be merely a consequence

of rising secularism and the decline in religiosity in America. It can also be said that religion has become a private matter for many of us, and decline in church attendance does not necessarily mean a decline in social capital. Therefore, alternatively it can be argued that social capital has simply shifted away from churches to more secular activities. Subsequently, Putnam also examines what he calls informal connections, such as family diners, playing sports, trust levels, and most importantly, data from bowling leagues to try and bring weight to the argument that people are far more individualistic nowadays, and interact a lot less with each other (pp. 93-147). Putnam writes that family dinners have declined from 50% to 34% over the last twenty years. Also, the number of picnics went down by almost 60% from 1975 to 1999 (p.100). All of these activities are considered by Putnam to foster social capital and social cohesion, and the decline of one means the decline of the other. The most important evidence though for declining of social capital, and on which the book is based upon is the number of bowling leagues. Putnam mentions that the number of individual bowlers did increase by 10%, however, league bowling plummeted by 40% (p.112). Therefore, based on the arguments outlined above, it can be clearly seen why Putnam comes to the conclusion that social capital has been declining in the past decades. However, this essay will now examine counterarguments to this claim, and try to prove that Putnams way of measuring this key term led him to the wrong conclusion, and it can simply be argued that the data is outdated. By looking at evidence of membership of new organisations, or taking into consideration the tragedy that took place on 9/11, one could argue that our society is going through a revival. First we should examine some evidence against Putnams argument that social capital is declining, which he himself acknowledges in his book. Therefore, it can be argued that data on voter turnout or interest in news is not even representative of social capital since they do not require interaction between members of the society, but are rather individualistic in their nature (p. 37). This brings in the idea of the issues associated with measuring the dependent variable of social capital, and how the ambiguity decreases the validity of the evidence (Paxton, 1999, pp. 89-90).

Moreover, in terms of voting, it can be argued that the number of people who are ineligible to vote has been growing faster than the one who is eligible, which makes it look like voter turnout is declining (Stolle and Hooghe, 2005, p. 155). This is supported by evidence from Table 1 in McDonalds and Popkins (2001) article where we can see that in 1964 there were 478,000 ineligible voters, compared to 2,851,000 in 2000 (McDonald and Popkin, 2001, p. 966). This can be explained by the fact that there are more under 18 years old people. Another point that could be made against Putnams initial ideas is whether there was ever a golden age. According to the data provided in the book, it can be seen how the author presupposes that before the 1960s American society was flourishing and was closer than ever. The question about the existence of a golden age is raised by a number of authors. For example, Pamela Paxton argues that the level of social capital has remained steady (Paxton, 1999, p. 114, p.122), or as Stolle and Hooghe (2005, p. 155) wrote: the trend does not show any obvious or significant decline. All these authors came to these conclusions after conducting data research themselves and large amounts of data. Paxton (1999) performs a 20 years long study that takes into consideration a multitude of indicators, and the final results are inconsistent with Putnams claim. One of the major points that will now be discussed is that social capital has not been declining; instead there is a shift in activities that people take part in that can foster social capital. Therefore, it changed its shape rather than its scale (Fischer, 2001, pp. 8-9) with the emergence of crime-watch groups, health clubs, support associations for various addictions, and online groups. To support this claim, one could look at the evidence Putnam himself brings (p. 148-182) of new organisations that emerged in the last decades like Sierra Club, National Organization for Women, or the American Association for Retired Persons (AARP). The Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) claims roughly one million members in the United States (p. 150). Additionally, Greenpeace managed to increase its membership from 800,000 to 2,350,000 in just five years from 1985 to 1990 (p. 155). Therefore, in Putnams words, this can be called a reorientation from old-fashioned to contemporary affiliations (p. 156).

It can be said that the author concentrates too much on the traditional realms of social capital, while the structure of the society itself has changed. Our society might be shifting towards a more even classless society, with the majority belonging to the middle class (Woods, 2010). Hence, there is less involvement in groups such as trade unions. On the other hand, a counterargument to this would be that these new groups are merely tertiary organisations (p. 156) and they do not require any deep civic involvement, people just donate money, and this makes them feel good about themselves. Another example or argument for the revival of social capital would be the Internet, or the telephone. Before examining the benefits of this new technology, it is important to note that it has the power to both increase and decrease social capital. Putnam argues that the telephone specifically can reduce loneliness but also face-to-face socializing (p. 168). This calls us to rethink how we define social capital, and if people feel less lonely, is it necessary that they spend their time physically together, or maybe long hours spent video calling can substitute that. The view that the Internet is an agent that fosters social capital is supported by Burns (2011) who found that Facebook creates more united groups, but it also solidifies weaker ones. Additionally, the paper looks at how the Internet fosters grassroots movements such as the American Tea Party Movement (TPM) (Burns, 2001, p. 27-30). It was also found that heavy Internet use is associated with increased participation in voluntary organisations and politics (Wellman, Haase, Witte, Hampton, 2001, p. 436). This therefore demonstrates that the activity of people grew in some areas and the claim that social capital is declining is not true.

Finally, we could argue that the disaster of 9/11 actually provided an awakening to the society, and led to its revival (Putnam, 2002). In the article, Putnam revisits his claim, and argues that after the event there was an increase in the levels of political consciousness and engagement (Putnam, 2002). Moreover, compared to the claim made in 2000 that social trust has been in decline since the mid 1960s (p. 140), Putnam (2002) argues that in 2001 there was an increase of 51% of trust in the

federal government. This could suggest that the future is no longer as dark as it seemed. However, some people would say there is a counter argument to this data, by arguing that this revival could only be felt among middle class white Americans (Sander and Putnam, 2010, pp.13-15). Despite this, it can be argued that Putnams claim is very weak in itself since even in his book he acknowledges the four areas which could provide counterargument to his claim: increase in the number of young people volunteering, rise in telecommunications, growth of grassroots evangelical conservatives and also the rise of self-help groups (p.180).

Overall, based on the arguments made above, it can be clearly seen how Putnams argument that social capital loses ground when faced with new evidence and data collected from new organisations. This implies that while some groups experience a decline, others gain in members. Additionally, due to emerging global problems, such as terrorism, it can be argued that people are now closer than they have been before. Therefore, this essay tried to show that Putnams claim that social capital is declining is not convincing enough by first looking at the problems of defining the key term and its measurement. It then looked at empirical data, which was soon discarded by counterarguments such as new types of organisations, the Internet or an actual revival of the community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Burns, L. 2011. Bowling online: How the Internet is driving the reinvigoration of American social capital. Available at: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/research/workingpapers/wpspaisfiles/lukeburns-01-12.pdf [Last accessed: 12 February 2014]. Coleman, J. S. 1993. The rational reconstruction of society. American Sociological Review, vol. 58, pp.1-15. Fischer, C. S. 2001. Bowling alone: What's the score? Technical report, American Sociological Association, Anaheim, CA. Available at: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/rsfcensus/papers/BowlingAlone.pdf [Last accessed: 12 February 2014]. Krishna, A. and Shrader, E. 1999. Social Capital Assessment Tool. Conference on Social Capital and Poverty Reduction. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. June 22-24, 1999. Available at: http://www.langleygroup.com.au/images/sciwp22.pdf [Last accessed: 12 February 2014]. McDonald, M. P. and Popkin, S. L. 2001. The Myth of Vanishing Voter. American Political Science Review, vol. 94, no.4, pp.963-974. Available at: http://polisci2.ucsd.edu/ps100da/McDonald%20%26%20Popkin%20%20APSR%20Myth%20vanis hing%20Voter.pdf [Last accessed: 16 February 2014]. Paxton, P. 1999. Is Social Capital Declining in the United States? A Multiple Indicator Assessment. American Journal of Sociology, vol. 105, no. 1, pp. 88-127. Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. Putnam, R. 2002. Bowling Together. Prospect, vol. 13, no.3. Available at: http://prospect.org/article/bowling-together-0 [Last accessed: 12 February 2014]. Sander, T. H. and Putnam, R. D. Still Bowling Alone? The Post 9/11 Split. Journal of Democracy, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 9-16. Available at: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/ocpa/pdf/still%20bowling%20alone.pdf [Last accessed: 17 February 2014].

Stolle, D. and Hooghe, M. 2005. Review Article: Inaccurate, Exceptional, One-Sided or Irrelevant? The Debate about the Alleged Decline of Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Western Societies. The British Journal of Political Science, vol. 35, pp. 149-167. Wellman, B., Haase, A. Q., Witte, J., and Hampton, K. 2001. Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital?: Social Networks, Participation, and Community Commitment. American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 45, pp. 436 455.

Woods, J. 2010. We are all middle class now, darling. The Telegraph, [online] (Last updated 11.00 PM on 22nd January 2010). Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7053761/Wereall-middle-class-now-darling.html [Last accessed: 16 February 2014].