ABSTRACT
The article examines how in the years from 1912 to 1943 emerging football clubs and other civic associations in Greater Buenos Aires were part of a movement by the city’s inhabitants to create their own institutions to fulfil needs that they perceived the larger society did not satisfying (in the case of football, opportunities for recreation). It also examines how the political system pushed successful organizations to look to politicians to enable long-term success. In examining football clubs and other civic associations, it becomes clear that the theories developed by Robert Putnam, among others, based on the writings of Alexis De Tocqueville, simply do not work for Argentina. They cannot be considered the schools for democracy that some writers have envisioned. Rather they became part of a clientelistic- and patronage-oriented political world. The average citizen could not obtain aid from the government without dependence on the powerful.
