Path Dependence, Civic Culture, and Differential

213 Path Dependence, Civic Culture, Government Performance Putnam’s argument with a strong sense of intellectual closure and a seemingly flawless protective belt. Dependence, Civic Putnam stated some unremarkable findings when he reported that Path the medieval monarchical and republican regimes worked differently, Culture, and Differential that modern public institutions work better in some parts of Italy than in others, and that the south has fewer expressions of voluntary joint Government Performance or collective efforts than does the north. But for Putnam’s explanation of these findings to hold, three things must be true. The first is that the Italian regional experiment was a “natural” experiment, to be approached in the same way that “a botanist might study plant devel opment by measuring the growth of genetically identical seeds sown in different plots” (Putnam 1993, 7, emphasis added). The second is that patterns of civic culture best explain differential effectiveness in regions. The third is that these modern social patterns are plainly trace able to the monarchical and republican regimes of medieval times. One objective of this chapter is to show that neither logic nor evi dence bears out such an interpretation. The regional experiment was hardly a “natural” experiment. Patterns of civic culture do not explain Robert D. Putnam’s Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in all of the story about regional government performance. As hinted in Modern Italy (1993) sought to account for differential performance of chapters 4 and 8, differential behaviours in different regions cannot be regional governments in terms of culture, and for systemic variance explained unless one introduces the rich historical diversity that char between north and south in terms of the medieval legacy of civic acterizes each region — and this Putnam was prevented from doing by norms and networks. At a time when the study of comparative poli the very method of analysis he used. The other, more general objective tics seemed increasingly to privilege cross-national analysis, Making of the chapter, then, is to show that the substantive claim about how Democracy Work stood out as an important reminder that “compar development proceeds explains why some of Putnam’s findings are ative political research of the broadest philosophical and theoretical unsurprising and the great majority of his other findings are either mis implications can be executed within a single country” (LaPalombara leading or wrong (cf., Bagnasco Goldberg 1996; M. Levi 1996; 1993, 550). “stunning breakthrough in Lupo 1993a, i993b; Tarrow 1996). The study has been hailed as a political culture research” (Laitin 1995, 171), contributing to “a To be sure, not all the problems in Making Democracy Work are renaissance of political culture” beyond the Italian peninsula in ways attributable to the assumptions of path dependence. For example, Put that Banfield’s work did not (e.g., Jackman and Miller 1996). Put nam began his inquiry with sketches of Ban and Bologna, the regional nam’s work made other contributions to comparative inquiry. It capitals of Apulia and Emilia-Romagna respectively. The stark contrast brought the study of Italian politics “back in” and broadened it, pre is an effective literary device. The problem is that his story does not cisely at a time when favourite Italian research topics among compar match the facts on the ground, insofar as they can be independently ativists — such as leftist parties and national trade unions — no longer verified; Putnam’s narrative misleads readers who have to rely on the seemed to have the old currency. Making Democracy Work further author for a description of those cities and for civic practices through suggested that, contrary to the view often expressed, Italy’s past need out Italy (Putnam 1993, —6).’ It seems petty to point out inaccurate not always be viewed as a burden. Indeed, it was the use of the past and exaggerated small details — minutiae in a rich story — but such to explain differential effectiveness in contemporary regional govern details assume importance only because Putnam so effectively ments that made Putnam’s study an important work. It is, in turn, employed them to paint a picture that is not quite true to life. path dependence analysis that sharply distinguishes Making Democ It is my contention in this chapter that a path dependence forma racy Work from its earlier Italian-language version (Putnam, Leonar mentis or mindset goes a long way in accounting for the flaws that dis di, and Nanetti 1985), adds more lustre to the former, and endows able Making Democracy Work. The strength of path dependence as a 2.14 Why People Are Not Path Dependently Doomed 2.15 Path Dependence, Civic Culture, Government Performance substantive claim about how development proceeds consists in com doctrines of extreme rationalism of the past two centuries and the bining fortuitous contingencies of an initial phase with a deterministic deterministic doctrines of his own time so as to understand how par logic concerning the subsequent process — both people and their behav ticular institutions emerge; how they change over time; and how insti iours are locked in as a consequence of their past history (e.g., Hodg tutional arrangements affect individual and institutional behaviours as son 1991). In the first section of the chapter, I shall point to the prob well as development potentials more generally. The pressing task, he lems that path dependence analysis created for Putnam’s understand stressed, was to construct a “public science or economy” incorporat ing of the medieval legacy; in the second, I shall advance the argument ing history, institutions, culture, and individuals — not as blind instru that institutions more modern than the medieval ones Putnam consid ments of a particular time and culture, but as beings capable through ered have shaped the civic society and constitute a south different from their actions of destroying, derailing, or refashioning the heredity of what Putnam and others took for granted. From this vantage point, it the past (Cattaneo [1839a] 1960, 1:95—142). In the end, and after should be easier to see that the creation of regional governments and more than twenty volumes, Cattaneo did not quite succeed in fashion differences in regional government performance have been deeply mis ing this new “public science.” He seldom had the time, or the inclina understood. Above all, I shall argue that Putnam has drawn the wrong tion, to return to his ideas and develop them fully, so, for example, he lessons from history and from the creation and performance of region did not pursue the implication of his (and his mentor, Gian Domenico al government. This is not to suggest that there are no north-south dif Romagnosi’s) insights about transaction analysis. But his dynamic view ferences, but rather to point out that differentials in development of the world and his appreciation that “the state” may be nothing but remain poorly understood. rules manipulated for public and private ends sharply differentiates his logic of inquiry from Putnam’s. Cattaneo also shared little of Putnam’s THE MEDIEVAL LEGACY benign view of government. As we saw in chapter , Cattaneo argued that the most productive Putnam’s inquiry into the historic roots of contemporary problems is way to make sense of the vicissitudes of more than two thousand years very much part of the tradition of Italian scholarship and public dis of recorded history of Italy is to examine the question of self-govern course. Perhaps one of the best-known practitioners in this tradition is ment as an empirical and theoretical question. Thus the i 858 essays on Carlo Cattaneo, the Milanese publicist with the reputation of an the Italian civic tradition can be read at different levels: the city as an uncompromising Risorgimento radical democrat whom we met in historical community; as a manifestation of the struggle for self-gover chapter 3. Cattaneo and Putnam share an interest in civic community nance over time; and as a conceptual variable on the basic human real and social capital. In Cattaneo’s 1858 essays on “The City as an Orga ity (consorzio umano) identifying “democracy” with the universality of nizational Principle for Understanding the Course of Italian History,” the local community, not with parliamentary government or even rep he used the legacy of medieval Italy to place in sharp relief the Italian resentative assemblies. civic tradition, to argue against the creation of a unitary, monarchical Cattaneo went back to ancient times — to the civic culture of Magna regime, and to press for a federal, republican solution to the making of Graecia in the south, and of the Etruscan communities in the centre modern Italy in the i86os (Cattaneo [1858] 1957, 2:383—437). The and the north. He identified several periods in the history of Italian title of Putnam’s co-authored 1985 book on the Italian regions, La cities; drew no sharp differences between city and countryside, a fea pianta e le radici, was taken from Cattaneo’s characterization of liber ture of Italian life that has sharply differentiated its rural population ty as a plant of many roots; moreover, several passages from Cattaneo’s from northern European counterparts; and ended his account with the work grace the frontispiece of the book, fittingly published under the city republics in the fourteenth century. Unlike Putnam, Cattaneo iden aegis of the Cattaneo Research Institute of Bologna, a prestigious inde tified characteristics of civic traditions throughout Italy: the role of pendent social science research centre. A consideration of how Catta local community in the historic memory and consciousness of people; neo approached the past clarifies what is new and what is old in Put the importance of municipal institutions; and the cities as self-govern nam’s thesis and where the two analysts differ.

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