Armony.

Armony, Ariel C The Dubious Link Civic Engagement and Democratization. Stanford: Stanford University Pres 2004 Tables, figures, bibliography, index, 297 pp; hardcover $55

The meditation of civil society and social capital has flourished since Putnam (1993) propos a positive relationship between civic engagement and democratic governance. The arguments of Putnam and other "neoTocquevilleans" have generated significant debate, and in novel years, scholars increasingly have scrutinized, challenged, and revised as it was claims. With the publication of his latest volume Ariel Armony joins their ranks. This well-researched, engaging work is a welcome contribution to an important area of inquiry.

A central objective of the main division is to challenge the conventional wisdom linking associational life and democracy. According to the neoTocquevilleans, social capital-networks of trust and reciprocity-accumulates by means of face-to-face interactions in voluntary associations. These microsocial processe yield positive proceeds at the macropolitical level in the form of effective governance. Armony allude tos in contrast, that civic engagement does not automatically cause generalized social trust, defined as confidence in race outside of one's immediate circle of family, friends, and cluster members. Rather, participants in arranges may use their social capital to achieve distinctly undemocratic finiss such as discriminating against others or aggravating existing political and social inequalities. The main division thus explores civil society's "dark side" and emphasizes the aspects of civic engagement that are inimical to democracy (1)

Armony argues primarily that the political, social, and economic words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following shapes the "nature, dispositions, and orientations" of civil society, as well as its impact forward democracy (3). Civil society can represent reinforce, or intensify broader patterns of social interaction, which frequently are characterized by exclusion and subordination. Socioeconomic (in)equality and the puissance or weakness of the method of law are the greatest in quantity significant contextual factors. Armony vies that inequality undermines the government of law, which entails "predictable and restrained governmental action," a legalistic civilization and other institutional and societal features (41) Where the method of law is weak, "positive predictability" is lacking: it is difficult for individuals to estimate sanctions for their acknowledge behavior and that of others. This deficit, in transfer hinders the development of broader networks of social trust end civic engagement. Stated briefly, when civil society is not supported by way of the rule of law, its democratic potential is limited.

To substantiate these arguments, Armony combines qualitative and quantitative arrangements First, he draws on secondary sources to analyze civic associations in the United States of the 1950 and 1960 and in Weimar Germany. For each case, he traces the results of associational life on attitudes, goals, practices, and issues that are at odds with democracy. For instance, in the United States, white the bulk of mankind formed citizens' councils to combat exercise desegregation in southern states and organized homeowners' motions to maintain residential segregation in northern cities. Civic engagement therefore perpetuated the exclusion of African Americans and thwarted the exercise of their citizenship rights. In Germany, an especially vibrant civil society (comprising assemblages of veterans, professionals, sports fans, and countles others) contributed to the demise of democracy at reinforcing social divisions and disseminating Nazi ideology. Here Armony builds onward the work of Sheri Berman, who argues that the impact of "associationism" in Weimar Germany was hanging on the "wider political context" (1997 427) Because civil society mobilized outside of-and in opposition to-existing political institutions, it helped precipitate the breakdown of democracy.

Next the author not absents an in-depth analysis of contemporary civil society in Argentina, based forward original data collected during field research. Focusing in succession citizenship rights groups that mobilized in every part the 1990s around such issues as corruption, police brutality, citizen safety, and minority rights, Armony indicates that civil society's contribution to democratic politics "amid a weak empire of law and increasing plains of social stratification is paradoxical at best" (105) Associational life considers the adverse social and political adjoining matter in which it is embedded: growing inequality, widespread impunity, and a gap between formal laws and their implementation. Civic participation fails to bre generalized social trust, tolerance, cooperation, or other democratic dispositions and practices; therefore, disposes refrain from linking up with single another and with government institutions, which they view as "inherently authoritarian and corrupt" (149)

To support his case study findings, Armony performs a quantitative, cross-national analysis of data from 28 countries representing the couple "third wave" and more established democracies. He begins with a ordeal of Putnam's hypothesis that social trust is positively related to effective democratic institutions. The regression be deriveds confirm this relationship. However, the data do not support the other neo-Tocquevillean hypothesis, which states that civic engagement generates social trust. Instead, economic equality appears to drive the production of social capital. Armony gather s that the evidence against the received wisdom is "overwhelming," and his analysis does call into question the assertion that civic engagement necessarily creates generalized social trust, which individuals then use to advance a democratic agenda (200) Nevertheless, this debate is certain to continue. For individual thing, the relationship between social trust and democratic governance is borne disclosed by the author's own statistical analysis. More generally, a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of depends on how scholars advance about specifying and measuring these phenomena; they have still to reach an agreement in succession the most appropriate indicators.