Robert Putnam’s Research on Diversity

Do highly diverse societies encourage tolerance, or do they cultivate distrust and isolation? That is the question Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam tackles in his latest research, and his findings have raised more than a few eyebrows. In the short run, Putnam writes in the June issue of the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, “immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital.” In ethnically diverse neighborhoods, “residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down,’” he explains. In the long run, however, “successful immigrant societies have overcome such fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities,” he says.

The political scientist began his research seven years ago, after the publication of his influential book Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster), in which he described the collapse of community life in America. When word of Putnam’s findings leaked out last fall, conservative commentators hailed his results as a blow to multiculturalism, and berated him for not publishing them sooner. Now both his provocative study and the question of whether he purposely withheld it are stirring considerable controversy.

John Leo, the Manhattan Institute: Putnam has long been aware that his findings could have a big effect on the immigration debate. Last October he told the Financial Times that “he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity.” He said it “would have been irresponsible to publish without that,” a quote that should raise eyebrows. Academics aren’t supposed to withhold negative data until they can suggest antidotes to their findings. Nor has Putnam made details of his study available for examination by peers and the public. So far, he has published only an initial summary of his findings, from a speech he gave after winning an award in Sweden. (City Journal)

Robert D. Putnam, Harvard University: Leo’s article is, on one important point, utterly inaccurate. His claim that I intentionally held back on releasing our findings is demonstrably false. In fact, within weeks of getting the original survey results in early 2001 (six years ago), I issued a national press release describing our preliminary findings in detail. ... And a few months later in 2001 (just as soon as the data had been cleaned) we made the full, raw data set publicly available to anyone through the Roper Center data archive. ...

Over the last six years, those data have become one of the most widely used data sets in the social sciences, downloaded and analyzed by hundreds of other researchers. Finally, contrary to Leo’s claim, we have not “published only an initial summary” of our findings, but an elaborate 38-page journal article, packed with charts, statistics, and methodological details, and as I have said, the raw original data have been publicly available for six years, an invitation to early scrutiny that is almost unprecedented in social science. (Crunchy Con, beliefnet)

Rod Dreher, journalist: I predict this research will have absolutely zero impact on the immigration debate. Why? Because Diversity is a dogmatic secular religion. To dissent from its dogmas is to declare oneself to be a heathen. Seriously, to question its premises is to be thought of as a closet hater by the Establishment. You would get about as far questioning Creationism at a backwoods Bible college as you would questioning Diversity at a U.S. university, corporation, or whatnot. In fact, that’s a good comparison, because it’s the secular left that’s always cracking on religious people for ignoring science when it doesn’t suit their ends. (Crunchy Con, beliefnet)

Rick Moran, journalist and political activist: Rather than look at the study, I am more intrigued with the professor’s hand wringing over the fact that his work tends to knock the chocks from underneath a pillar of leftist thinking; that by pigeonholing Americans and recent arrivals into their own special group while encouraging a separateness based on culture and language, tolerance and acceptance will automatically follow in the country at large. This has been an article of faith on the left for 30 years. It has affected school curricula for children as young as preschoolers on up through the speech codes and diversity mandates found in the finest institutions of higher learning in the land. ... What’s a conscientious liberal to do? The professor not only has political dynamite in his hands but .50-caliber ammunition for the enemies of multicultural thought. (Rightwing Nuthouse)

Daniel Larison, columnist: If the evidence shows that the short- to middle-term effects on all these things are indeed “devastating,” as Leo puts it, doesn’t a scientist or a scholar have the ethical obligation to report it and make it known as soon as possible? If he is concerned about backlash, as well he might be, shouldn’t he make the utmost efforts to disseminate the information sooner rather than later, so as to minimize said backlash? If all ethnic groups suffer reduced social capital, is it not in the interests of all to address the matter as forthrightly as possible? (The American Scene)

Madeleine Bunting, columnist: The killer punch of his research is that diversity not only reduces social capital between ethnic groups but also within ethnic groups. Diversity leads not so much to bad race relations as to everyone becoming more isolated and less trustful. ...

Too often the public debate is skewed toward getting “them” to integrate with “us,” and conform to “our” norms of dress, culture, and values. When this is allied to an aggressive rhetoric on the war against terror, it begins to sound like hectoring or some form of persecution. But Putnam is not talking about a top-down set of instructions on nationalism, but a much broader social process in which the host country changes as much as it changes its new arrivals: Through a collaborative effort of imagination and myriad individual experiences, new solidarity is forged. It’s a message of hope that he keenly hopes doesn’t get buried in sensationalist headlines about the short term cost of “hunkering.” (The Guardian)

http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 53, Issue 45, Page B4