Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone Analysis

Social capital has become one of the most active areas of analysis and debate in the social sciences over time. Robert D. Putnam had released his highly influential book, Bowling Alone: The collapse and Revival of American Community. Putnam interests the readers by informing them the ways that the United States has withdrawn from civic engagement over a period of time. And this decline has crippled the civil society. Furthermore, He promotes that citizens take an interest in securing and reestablishing their stock of social capital. The research he presents indicates he is correct to certain extent in his statement that Americans have disconnected civically. Putnam has developed a common framework for understanding this phenomenon and refers …show more content…
Putnam uses reliability which is seen through his consistent argument about civic engagement. He also uses validity which according to his argument, the data are accurate at that point in time. This is proven as he has studied membership rewards, National Election Survey, General Social Survey, Roper Social and Political Trends data set and DDB Needham Lifestyle Survey to back his data up. He emphasis the distinction between “Doing with” and “Doing for.” There is a strong connection between being connect to formal organization or networks and the giving of time and money for a cause greater than one’s self. Putnam argues that doing with people is more important than doing for as it creates social bridging which leads to generalized reciprocity; the outcome being social capital. Throughout the section, He conceptualizes volunteering and Philanthropy. To break it down, he specifically conceptualizes volunteering by differentiating clubgoing and churchgoing participation. In addition, he operationalizes volunteering by comparing the data for clubgoing vs. churchgoing to show the change over time and how it had effects on volunteering and community project participation. Putnam uses continuous variable as it measures the number of times people who are never, less than monthly, or monthly/more volunteered per year for church attendance and club attendance. This use of continuous variable strengths his argument because it takes …show more content…
For instance, he claims that schmoozing within people has declined. He uses reliable data which gives him consists results throughout his surveys but the results are not valid. Through the results, he claims that schmoozing has declined rather than looking at different types of variable that should be taken into consideration which recording the data. He distinguishes between Machers, people who make things happen in the community, and Schmoozers, who have an active life. He believes that Schmoozers are people who are more likely to bridge tries as they have sustained participation which leads to build social capital. He further argues that informal group bowling has replaced Bowling Leagues which has declined schmoozing leading to decline in social capital. Throughout the section, He conceptualizes informal social connections. To break it down, he shows the community based activity like bowling league. In addition, he operationalizes the increase and decrease of league bowling within men and women to show the effects on schmoozing. Putnam again uses continuous variable to measure his data as he is noting the number change in member per year, a quantity amount. This illustrates a weakness in his argument as Bowling Leagues usually consists of lower class white men. And Putnam reasons that to achieve social capital, we need to bridge ties meaning interact with different