The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

Statistical Analysis with Missing Data

Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism

Citizen and subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism

Using data from an original two-wave panel survey of California high school students and a two-wave panel survey of high school students in Chicago, we find that different pedagogical approaches influence different forms of civic and political engagement. Specifically, controlling for prior levels of engagement and demographic factors, we find that open discussion of societal issues promotes engagement with political issues and elections. In contrast, service learning opportunities increase community-based and expressive actions. Both kinds of opportunities promoted commitments to participatory citizenship. These patterns can teach us about the kinds of opportunities (both in school and out) that can shape adolescents’ civic and political development.

Different Pedagogy, Different Politics: High School Learning Opportunities and Youth Political Engagement

Mexicans are disenchanted with democracy?or at least with democracy in their country. A decade after the watershed 2000 presidential contest, they are already deeply distrustful of democratic institutions and actors, politicians, parties, and parliament. The contrast with the heady optimism of the 1990s could not be greater. Former President Ernesto Zedillo described the 1997 midterm elections, when the opposition wrested Congress from the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as a "democratic fiesta." The phrase aptly characterizes the citizen effervescence of the entire decade. Now, the party's over. This rapid, deep disillusionment is especially puzzling because one would expect the euphoria following the culmination of Mexico's transition to electoral democracy in 2000 to have been greater and more enduring than it has been. Decades of struggle for free and fair elections might have made citizens more forbearing of the shortcomings of the new government brought to power by these elections. Typically, democratic regimes' legitimacy affords them a "reservoir of good will" that enables governments to withstand "performance deficits." This reservoir, in theory, keeps citizens from gen eralizing their dissatisfaction with democratic governments to democracy as an ideal.1 Democracies are insulated from frustration with economic downturns by their legiti macy of origin and ability to modify economic policy without changing regimes.2 Yet a mere nine years or less sufficed in Mexico for satisfaction with democracy to fall dra matically from its peak in 1997. Why are Mexicans so dissatisfied with their democracy? The combination of a citizen conceptualization of democracy that emphasizes social equity?a "substantive" view of democracy?with poor government performance in just that respect is partly responsible. That is, even after accounting for other factors that bear on evaluations of democracy, how Mexicans define democracy exercises an important, independent effect on how satisfied they are with it. Specifically, citizens who view democracy as either political rights ("liberal" democrats) or elections ("electoral" democrats) are more satisfied than substantive democrats. The causal relationship between conceptualizations of democracy and satisfaction with it is both undertheorized and underexplored empirically. Exploring definitions of democracy in three Latin American countries, Roderic Ai Camp has established that Mexicans tend to view democracy in socioeconomic terms, but he does not relate this 41

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The Party's Over: Citizen Conceptions of Democracy and Political Dissatisfaction in Mexico

Local human rights organizations (LHROs) are crucial allies in international efforts to promote human rights. Without support from organized civil society, efforts by transnational human rights reformers would have little effect. Despite their importance, we have little systematic information on the correlates of public trust in LHROs. To fill this gap, we conducted key informant interviews with 233 human rights workers from sixty countries, and then administered a new Human Rights Perceptions Poll to representative public samples in Mexico (n = 2,400), Morocco (n = 1,100), India (n = 1,680), and Colombia (n = 1,699). Our data reveal that popular trust in local rights groups is consistently associated with greater respondent familiarity with the rights discourse, actors, and organizations, along with greater skepticism toward state institutions and agents. The evidence fails to provide consistent, strong support for other commonly held expectations, however, including those about the effects of foreign funding, socioeconomic status, and transnational connections.

Who Trusts Local Human Rights Organizations?: Evidence from Three World Regions

Local human rights organizations (LHROs) are key domestic and transnational actors, modifying, diffusing, and promoting liberal norms; mobilizing citizens; networking with the media and activists; and pressuring governments to implement international commitments. These groups, however, are reliant on international funds. This makes sense in politically repressive environments, where potential donors fear government retaliation, but is puzzling elsewhere. We interviewed 263 LHRO leaders and key informants from 60 countries, and conducted statistically representative surveys of 6180 respondents in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria. Based on these data, we believe LHRO funding in non-repressive environments is shaped by philanthropic logics of appropriateness. In the late 1990s, transnational activists successfully mainstreamed human rights throughout the international donor assistance community, freeing up development money for LHROs. Domestic activists in the global South have not promoted simila...

Universal values, foreign money: funding local human rights organizations in the global south

Just as Mexico—particularly civil society—has joined the rights revolution, a crime wave is convulsing the country. Local human rights organizations (LHROs) are crucial intercessors on beha...

David Crow

Papers

Different Pedagogy, Different Politics: High School Learning Opportunities and Youth Political Engagement

The Party's Over: Citizen Conceptions of Democracy and Political Dissatisfaction in Mexico

Who Trusts Local Human Rights Organizations?: Evidence from Three World Regions

Universal values, foreign money: funding local human rights organizations in the global south

Rights trap or amplifier? Crime and attitudes toward local human rights organizations in Mexico