Diverse Communities: The Problem with Social Capital

by Barbara Arneil

• ISBN13: 9780521857192
• ISBN10: 0521857198
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-10-09
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Diverse Communities is a critique of Robert Putnam's social capital thesis, re-examined from the perspective of women and cultural minorities in America over the last century. Barbara Arneil argues that the idyllic communities of the past were less positive than Putnam envisions and that the current collapse in participation is the result of change rather than decline. Arneil suggests the cause of this change is not a decline in volunteerism, television or suburban sprawl but rather the unleashing of powerful economic, social and cultural forces that, despite having led to division and distrust within American society, have also contributed to greater justice for women and cultural minorities. She concludes by proposing that lessons learned from the past and present provide the normative foundation from which to challenge such policies and enumerate the principles of justice by which diverse communities might be governed in the twenty-first century.

Author Biography

Barbara Arneil is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia

Table of Contents

List of abbreviations	viii
Acknowledgements	xi
Social capital, justice and diversity: an introduction	1	(14)
The Progressive Era: past paradise?	15	(26)
The present malaise in civic participation: empirical and normative dimensions	41	(51)
The causes of `decline' in social capital theory	92	(32)
Civic trust and shared norms	124	(39)
Beyond Bowling Alone: social capital in twenty-first-century America	163	(37)
Justice in diverse communities: lessons for the future	200	(41)
References	241	(16)
Index	257