BOWLING ALONE: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. - Review - book review

Washington Monthly, July, 2000 by Curtis Gans

BOWLING ALONE: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam Simon & Schuster; $26.00

IN THIS ERA OF AMERICAN SELF-congratulation--for winning the Cold War, establishing American pre-eminence as the world's foremost military and economic power, the "longest peacetime economic expansion" in American history, record levels of employment unaccompanied by high inflation, budget surpluses, reduced crime rates, decreased air and water pollution, the ability of an ever-increasing percentage of Americans to spend an ever-increasing percentage of their savings on an endless variety of non-essential consumer goods, and their pursuit of the bitch-goddess of wealth with abandon and without shame or apology--there is an underlying dirty little secret:

The underpinnings of American democracy that helped produce all this are coming apart.

For nearly the past 25 years, I have been looking at one aspect of this problem--the growing disinclination of Americans to vote and otherwise participate in the political life of their nation. Every biennium American politics seems to produce new modern records for citizen political disengagement. And every year, the nation seems further and further from the political comity, cohesion, and consensus that makes possible the constructive address of citizen needs. In the 1998 election, only 11 percent of the 18-19 year olds eligible to vote for the first time bothered to go to the polls. The United States now stands 139th out of 163 democracies in the rate of voter participation. And the nation that prides itself on being the best example of government of, for, and by the people is rapidly becoming a nation whose participation is limited to the interested or zealous few.

Five years ago, in an article entitled "Bowling Alone" in an obscure publication, Robert D. Putnam expanded this discussion beyond the boundaries of political engagement by arguing that the entire spectrum of social connectedness in interpersonal, civic, and social life in America was eroding. His title was drawn from his finding that while bowling as an activity had not diminished in popularity, what had diminished substantially was league bowling, as emblematic of many more important activities that Americans were doing in isolation rather than in conjunction with others.

Prior to that article, Putnam was a respected, if not widely known, Harvard professor who had published a minimally read but highly honored book on Italian social connectedness. "Bowling Alone" took certain elites by storm. Putnam was invited to discuss his findings with foundation executives, institutional leaders, and the President of the United States. He was showered with grants to expand his article into a book and to conduct a series of seminars to elaborate on his initial findings with a high-level group of peers. Putnam also spawned a small industry of detractors, led by the late Everett Carll Ladd, who suggested that if one looked in other directions--toward continued high levels of church attendance, the proliferation of new political and social organizations, increased charitable giving, and a recent increase in volunteerism--the social state of America was not as bad as Putnam made it out to be.

Five years later, after exhaustive research including into the data that Ladd had used to debunk Putnam's theory, Bowling Alone is now a formidable book, which, through the overwhelming weight of evidence he has amassed, demolishes this set of criticisms.

He does not deny any of his critics' assertions--that church attendance is still at a high level, the number of political and social organizations has mushroomed, many more dollars are being donated to charitable organizations, volunteerism is on the rise among the old and the young, and there are many communities which still retain a high degree of community engagement.

But against this small catalogue of Pollyannaish propositions, Putnam has arrayed an imposing set of contrary and depressing evidence:

* Not only has there been a 25 percent decline in voting, but also a 50 percent decline in political involvement as measured by campaign activities engaged in over the last four decades. In 1973, a majority of Americans signed a petition, made a speech, wrote an article, or sent a letter to a public official or to the editor of a newspaper. By 1994, a majority engaged in none of these activities.

* Despite a proliferation of social, civic, and fraternal organizations during the last two and a half decades, a modest decline (16 percent) in membership in those organizations as a totality and a 50 percent decline (between 1973-1994) in active participation, as measured by those who took any leadership role, has occurred. In 1973, two-thirds of Americans attended at least one organizational or club meeting a year. By the late 1990s, two-thirds of all Americans did not attend any.

* There has been a profound change in the nature of organizational activity in which grassroots membership has been replaced by professionalized national staffs, and local activity and organizational sinew has been supplanted by the giving of money as the sole form of organizational identification.