Civil Society, Social Trust and Democratic Involvement

Abstract

The analysis of the rise and decline of civil society has become a booming academic enterprise among social scientists. Reflecting upon the social, cultural, historical, economic, and political dynamics affecting the erosion of community in Western societies has turned into a major topic of (post)modern accounts of the Res Publica. It even seems that in an era of widespread disillusion with the highly fragmented disciplinary status of the social sciences, particularly of sociology, the preoccupation with the collapse of community develops into what appears to be a growing unifying theme (Misztal, 1996). The number of publications by social scientists on the loss of community, often phrased as the decline of social capital, is augmenting (e.g., Norris, 1999; Skocpol & Fiorina, 1999; Van Deth et al., 1999; Putnam, 2000, 2002; Dekker & Uslaner, 2001; Edwards et al., 2001). The debate on the waxing and waning of community, the decline of civic life, the weakening of social bonds, the inflation of social capital, on what makes a good citizen, on what the good society stands for, is—once again—a core theme within the social sciences. Contributions vary from highly normative approaches, embodied in the morally pronounced writings by (new) communitarians (e.g., Etzioni, 1993, 1996, 2001), to more matter-of-fact quantitative approaches that study empirical trends in citizen involvement (e.g., Norris, 1999a; Putnam, 2002). We witness a significant growth of studies on trends in citizens’ civic virtues, political participation, volunteering, and involvement in informal social networks, which recently accumulated in Robert Putnam’s both much applauded and criticized book Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community (2000). Putnam’s main message is that in the last quarter-century Americans have become increasingly disconnected from their families, friends, neighbors, communities, social institutions, and public life; in short: American communities are ______________