While Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy is a solid case study on the sociopolitical divide between northern and southern Italy, it also makes a strong argument on the important role 'social capital' plays in facilitating democracy.

The research presented largely draws two important general conclusions: 1. "Social context and history profoundly condition the effectiveness of institutions" (182), and 2. "Changing formal institutions can change political practice" (184). These two points are then used to showcase how the historically horizontal governing power structures of northern Italy paved the way for greater trust in generalized reciprocal exchanges that lie at the base of social capital. Alternatively, southern Italy's history of vertical power structures (e.g. kingdoms with totalitarian/direct rule) eroded much of the foundation upon which social capital would have been built.

Also interesting, was Putnam's observation of there being no correlation between a region's level of industrialization with their level of civic engagement (158). Many imperial powers have used communities' means of production (e.g., pastoral, agrarian, industrialized, etc.) as justification for overtaking them in the name of bringing democracy and modernity. So the implications of this finding are pretty telling of how these 'justifications' are pretty bupkis, or so I thought.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It is both a thoughtful case study, as well as a well-developed source.