Social Cohesion Bleg

What are the best critical discussions of Putnam’s “bowling alone” thesis out there? Thank you.

6 thoughts on “Social Cohesion Bleg”

Will Ambrosini on June 27, 2007 at 6:33 pm said:

There’s the social capital literature; start at this website (in particular this reading list and especially this paper). “Trust” does well in cross-country growth regressions, but Putnam’s measures of group membership don’t perform well.

Also, I don’t know anyone who has studied this formally, but its evident from the U.S. that growth hasn’t suffered while formal group membership (by Putnam’s reckoning) has declined.
Will Ambrosini on June 27, 2007 at 1:33 pm said:

There’s the social capital literature; start at this website (in particular this reading list and especially this paper). “Trust” does well in cross-country growth regressions, but Putnam’s measures of group membership don’t perform well.

Also, I don’t know anyone who has studied this formally, but its evident from the U.S. that growth hasn’t suffered while formal group membership (by Putnam’s reckoning) has declined.
Will Wilkinson on June 27, 2007 at 8:42 pm said:

Thanks, Will!
Will Wilkinson on June 27, 2007 at 3:42 pm said:

Thanks, Will!
Tom on June 28, 2007 at 12:27 am said:

Tyler Cowen has a nice article about Putnam on his faculty page.
Tom on June 27, 2007 at 7:27 pm said:

Tyler Cowen has a nice article about Putnam on his faculty page.