Robert David Putnam (born 1941 in Rochester, New York) is a political scientist and professor at Harvard University. 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. Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ... Nickname: Motto: Rochester: Made for Living Location of Rochester in New York State Country State County Monroe Government [1]  - Mayor Robert Duffy (D) Area  - City  37. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      Political Science is the field concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behaviour. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ... Two-level game theory is a political theory based on game theory first articulated by Robert Putnam. ... The first two pages of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in (left to right) German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Ottoman Turkish and Russian A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely states and international organizations. ... Bowling Alone: Americas Declining Social Capital (1995) is an essay by Robert D. Putnam. ... Social capital is a core concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, and sociology, defined as the advantage created by a persons location in a structure of relationships. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...

Background and Early Work

Putnam graduated from Swarthmore College in 1963, 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. Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,450 students. ... Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Fulbright redirects here. ... Full name Balliol College Motto - Named after John de Balliol Previous names - Established 1263 Sister College St Johns College, Cambridge Master Andrew Graham (academic) Location Broad Street Undergraduates 403 Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford... The University of Oxford (usually abbreviated as Oxon. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... “Yale” redirects here. ... The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (U of M, UM or simply Michigan) is a coeducational public research university in the state of Michigan, and one of the foremost universities in the United States. ...

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.

Bowling Alone and Its Critics

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. 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. Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... Introduction The Journal of Democracy is the worlds leading publication on the theory and practice of democracy. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ...

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 organization -- typified by bowling leagues -- had undergone a massive decline in membership while the number of people bowling increased drastically. Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ...

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 from 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.

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) neglects the emergence of new forms of supportive organizations on and off the Internet;(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 BetterTogether:Civic Engagement in America is both a book and website published as an initiative of the Saguaro Seminar conducted at Harvard Universitys John F. Kennedy School of Government. ...

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 has a correlation [expressed as a beta equal to 0.04 in a multiple regression analysis (see Putnam, 2007)], to less trust both between and within ethnic groups. Although only a single study, limited to American data, and the Census tract Herfindahl Index of Ethnic Homogeneity only explaining 0.16 % of the variance in trust in neighbours in the regression model presented (Putnam, 2007) it claims to put into question both contact theory 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. According to contact theory, distrust will decline as members of different ethnic groups get to know and interact with each other. Putnam describes people of all races, sex and ages as "hunkering down" and going into their shells like a turtle. For example, he did not find any significant difference between 90 year olds and 30 year olds. Positive linear correlations between 1000 pairs of numbers. ... In sociology, conflict theory states that the society or organization functions so that each individual participant and its groups struggle to maximize their benefits, which inevitably contributes to social change such as changes in politics and revolutions. ...

Low trust with high diversity not only affects ethnic groups, but is also associated with:

• Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media.
• Lower political efficacy – that is, confidence in one's own influence.
• Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups.
• Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage).
• Less likelihood of working on a community project.
• Less likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering.
• Fewer close friends and confidants.
• Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life.
• More time spent watching television and more agreement that "television is my most important form of entertainment".

Putnam published his data set from this study in 2001 [1] [2] and subsequently published the full paper in 2007. ^[1] [3]. The economic theory of collective action is concerned with the provision of public goods (and other collective consumption) through the collaboration of two or more individuals, and the impact of externalities on group behavior. ... For the use of the word in a general sense, see Friendship. ...

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) [4]. 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." [5] On the other hand, Putnam did release the data in 2001 and publicized this fact [6]. 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" [7] .

Published works

• The Beliefs of Politicians: Ideology, Conflict, and Democracy in Britain and Italy (1973)
• The Comparative Study of Political Elites (1976)
• Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (with Joel D. Aberbach and Bert A. Rockman, 1981)
• Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (with Nicholas Bayne, 1984, revised 1987)
• Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Nannetti, 1993)
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000)
• Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society (Edited by Robert D. Putnam), Oxford University Press, (2002)
• Better Together: Restoring the American Community (with Lewis M. Feldstein, 2003)
• "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century -- The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize." Scandinavian Political Studies 30 (2), June 2007

For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Year 1976 Pick up sticks(MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... This article is about the year. ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full 2000 Gregorian calendar). ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Lewis M. Feldstein is the Co-Chair of The Saguaro Seminar along with Robert D. Putnam and current President of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

1. ^ Robert Putnam, "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century -- The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture," Scandinavian Political Studies 30 (2), June 2007

• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2004. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC.

• Fischer, C. S. 2005. Bowling alone: what's the score? Social Networks, 27, 155-167.

• Leo, J. 2007. Bowling with our Own: Robert Putnam's Sobering New Diversity Research Scares its Author. City Journal, 17(2). [8]

External links

• Bio page at the Saguaro Seminar
• Saguaro Seminar
• Official website for Bowling Alone
• Better Together, an initiative of the Saguaro Seminar
• Subdivided: Isolation and Community in America Documentary Film featuring Robert Putnam media
• Scientific article on diversity and trust published in the June 2007 edition of Scandinavian Political Studies