Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community [Paperback]

This latest book from political scientist Robert Putnam brings together a vast amount of factual information and data charting the decline in what has come to be known as "social capital" in the United States. Although the book is entirely focussed on the United States, the description of how civic engagement as revealed in community involvement, volunteering, voting behaviour and even informal socialising, has declined since the mid-1960s raises questions for non-American readers about whether this may be happening elsewhere and if so whether it matters. In a very clearcut and easy style, Professor Putnam reviews a growing amount of research in the US and beyond which shows that the degree to which individuals and communities are connected to each other makes a significant difference to a range of outcomes including school achievement, health, political democracy and levels of trustworthiness to mention only some - even when other factors such as income, wealth and ethnic conditions are taken into account. Some of the possible reasons for a recent decline in "social capital" are discussed and many of these will sound familiar to readers outside the US - increasing hours at work, TV watching etc. However, the most intriguing aspect is that differences between generations is what counts most. In other words, for the US at least, people born since the 1950s are less inclined to volunteer, vote, join associations and play an active role in networks. Some challenges and possible avenues for "rebuilding civic society" are discussed which will be of vital interest to a wide audience in the US and beyond. For the serious analyst or pundit of data sources and related topics, there is an extensive list of references and data sources.

This book brilliantly identifies something that most of us were aware of at some level - the fact that the level of social awareness and engagement is dropping in contemporary societies. Where the book is important is in detailed analysis and interpretation of seemingly rock-solid data. The conclusions are difficult to argue with. Television, generational attitudes, urban sprawl and the pressures of work have combined to fragment communities and contribute to an unhealthy level of social isolation.
Don't be put off however by the detailed references to statistical analysis. Putnam is like everybody's favourite lecturer - somebody with the skill to make a potentially dry area of research into hot news that has to be heard and discussed.

This book refers to American societies. Why then should anybody outside of the U.S. read it? Well, try these reasons:
- Certain causes have certain effects no matter where you are. Extra commuting time, for example, will always lead to less community time.
- Many Western societies are either evolving towards an American model or at least have the potential to do so. Those of us outside of the U.S have a chance to make things different.
- Reading Putnam's discussions of the ill effects of lack of community would lead one to suppose that this too could be at the root of some problems worldwide. These surveys need to be conducted anywhere that concern exists for the preservation of community structures.

Review the literature on Social Capital, and one name comes to the forefront again and again: Robert Putnam. It is this book which not only established him in the field, but more or less defined the future course of international study. But, although social capital is the central theme of this book, Putnam is less concerned with defining it (he gives at least three differing definitions, that I counted) as with demonstrating that it is not what it used to be.

Pages and pages of graphs all show a similar curve - gently rising from the 1900s, dipping for the Great Depression before rising again, dipping again for the second World War, rising sharply to peak in the sixties, before tumbling to a short plateau in the eighties, and then tumbling relentlessly from then on. This 'Putnam curve' (my words, not his) applies to Parent Teacher Associations, Card playing, civic activity, and, of course, to the rise and fall of league bowling, which is what gives this book its title. The graphs are supported by much reasoning, and by careful exclusion of other factors which might paint a false picture. The result is as compelling as it is far reaching.

Putnam's four factors which he believes contribute to the decline in social capital, or generalised reciprocity, as he at one point puts it, are perhaps less clearly demonstrated than the problem itself. They are: pressures of time and money, suburbanisation (with its commute to work), electronic entertainment (especially the television), and generational change, as more civic generations are replaced by less civic ones.

Likewise, his solutions, increasing civic engagement, community friendly workspaces, less time travelling, engaging faith groups, reducing TV time, and participatory cultural activities, are more supported by the extensive anecdotes than by the huge amounts of data.

Putnam's underlying thesis, that social capital is basically a 'good thing', and we should have more of it, had already been challenged by neo-marxist Pierre Bourdieu. A more substantial challenge has been put since, in that the US picture is very difficult to apply to the international community. UK society, for example, with the same four factors at work, does not remotely show a similar pattern of rising and falling social capital.

Nonetheless, the strength of Putnam's argument has been enough to set in motion major projects by the World Bank, the OECD, the EU and our own Office of National Statistics, to firm up the data gathering, and to find how it might apply to public policy.

It is very, very unusual to find a single work of such eminence in any modern field of enquiry. Most commentators have been content to build on Putnam's work, or take issue with the technicalities, rather than to challenge his overall thesis. This puts us at risk of discovering that it is the Emperor's new clothes, when someone comes along with a radically critical perspective.

Nonetheless, whatever flaws may be found in the theory at a later date, this is a seminal work, and well deserves the maximum rating.