Child of Time said:
were large between northern and southern Italy and according to Putnam the reasons for this are to be found as far back as in the late dark age/early renaissance. Of course some scientists have questioned Putnam's results (as
Well, to cut a long story very short, my opinion on that particular study and of others with similar conclusions, both scientific and anecdotal (think Tobias Jones for the latter category) is that they carry a bias in the very point of view they choose.
of course most of what they ascertain is believable and interesting, and i'll also go as far as saying that it's true in a reasonable percentage, but the idea that the social texture in southern italy is somewhat non-democratic due to mistrust in civic communities is, to put it mildly, a gross approximation.
a portion of southerners in this country do not see themselves as a part of the state, and hence they refuse the institutions. get a good book on the history of mafia before it became a criminal organization - it's a tribal structure, hence it's not democratic, but the idea that there is no sense of community is just misplaced.
some southern areas are still stuck with that particular form of (top-down) social relationship in current times and yes, there are several historical reasons that incited the prevalence of hierarchy over equality, but the point is that the traditional way of creating a community in the south never developed into an organized (and maybe democratic) state because there already was
another state, against which southern "civil society" was fighting by resorting to preceding forms of (also strategic) organization.
most societies became democratic through reforms of the institution, and maybe that's also the ontology of democracy itself, so you need to consider the particular circumstances.
i'm really hungry so i'll go cook and cut this here, but feel free to pm me for further discussion.
