ABSTRACT

Consider a review of a book entitled Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradition in Modern Italy, in that very free market-oriented journal, The Economist (6 February 1993). The reviewer brackets the author, Robert Putnam, with de Tocqueville, Pareto and Weber, no less, going on to point out that Putnam has shown how levels of economic development, education or urbanisation do not explain the differences in the recent performance of regional governments in Italy. ‘Mr. Putnam’s solution to the puzzle is ingenious, and unsettling’— unsettling to economists, that is. Putnam concludes that governments work best in regions with a high level of ‘civic community’, or trust, social co-operation and active participation by citizens, ‘…and that the distribution of civic community in present-day Italy was already clearly evident as long ago as the 13th century’ (emphasis added).