Is /lit/ exclusively for narrative works? I read a lot of academic

Read the sticky.

>>8598729
i don't know

Go ahead but don't expect people to give (You)s for obscure texts.

What did you learn from pic related OP?

>>8598729
omg, the title, the subtitle, why would you do this to yourself

like the only way I would ever, ever read that shit is if I were taking a class on the history of modern italy and had to grind out a paper on a poorly chosen/assigned topic

please tell me you are at least Italian or are getting paid to study a very boring place from a very boring perspective

>>8598735
>Read the sticky.

I read the sticky before posting this, and them decided to post this because it didn't answer the question.

>>8598738
Besides that Putnam was really bad at quantitative methods? The major takeaway was that governments with the exact same institutions can nevertheless have varying levels of efficacy in implementing policies based on the culture of the society. Which was apparently a major blow to previous thought, which largely held that institutional rules were the only things that mattered in determining a governments efficacy. Obviously this book example is politics related and might belong on pol, but I read things that aren't politics too.

>>8598757
While it is kind of niche in studying Italy, it was one of the most important books in politics in the 20th century (though only Putnam's second most famous work).

>>8598729
is this pop science

>>8598804
Putnam is a very well regarded academic in the field of political science, and it's written for academics, so in that sense no.

It also hasn't been read by a lot of people outside of people who study social science, so even using a nominal definition of "pop science," I don't think you could define it as that.

>>8598762
You should aspire to more. Abandon this dreck; political concern, even at the most analytical level is still heavily wrapped up in Christian teleology cloaked in enlightenment ideals. Abandon trivial notions like 'mankind' and 'destiny' and start living for the glory of your own sublime apprehension of the self through the other.

>The major takeaway was that governments with the exact same institutions can nevertheless have varying levels of efficacy in implementing policies based on the culture of the society.

I shudder to think of the sort of person to whom this was a major revelation. Even within the official consensus of the academy this must surely have been a couched assumption as far back as the formation of modern Italy.

I read portions of this book for a political science course. Our main takeaway was supposed to be that democracies with more social capital (social meetings and social organizations) performed better.

For anybody with misgivings, it's actually a really strong study. When Italy was creating its government, they decided on ~12 different regions with identical laws and democratic processes. Some regions ended up much happier with their local governments than others, and Putnam wanted to find out why. It's about as close as you get to a strong study of government controlling for institutional (law) factors.

>>8598855
In defense of the work, at a more meta level, Putnam's concept of "social capital," introduced in this book gained a lot of traction in the literature, particularly as a way to overcome commitment issues/collective action problems, even though that was just tacked on in the last chapter.

So it helped put to bed (at least for a time) rational choice theorists who argued that the collective action problem should be nearly insurmountable, because there was no way to guarantee that if you did something for someone else (a loss in utility), they they'd later do something for you (resulting in a net gain). Putnam's rebuttal being that if you have a history of reciprocating aid, and frequently go out of your way to help people, then people will be able to count on you to return the favor at some point, and will be willing to do something for you (overcoming the collective action problem). Then, on a large scale, if you have a culture that promotes social capital, then you'll have a more effective government.

So it was useful in moving the field away from purely rational consideration, and eventually towards a model in which both rational and affective considerations are considered seriously.

>>8598932
>>8598953
I still think this seems trite. I mean I know at a certain level scholars must conduct studies of implementations in order to build the sort of quasi-scientific structure they wish to approach their field of interest from. Especially in the social sciences.

Still, at a more slapdash level, questions of utility and investiture are easily apprehended by observing civic institutions like churches, even as far back the renaissance. A person's local investment in the collective causes proportional return because they accrue power over the lesser members via the robustness of their network integration.

Maybe I'm writing it off too casually and mistaking the actual impact of the work, but I still think you guys would be better served and more fulfilled by reading Ulysses and assoc. Unless you are working for a thinktank, or a student being integrated into the historiography of your crummy discipline.

>>8599084
haven't read OP's book, but without uniform institutional rules, there's no way to see whether it's social capital or not at play.

for instance, most all Christians believe in charity. but Protestants used soup kitchens which didn't provide anywhere near adequate sustenance to Catholics on condition they convert during the Irish famine, while Mormons keep a Bishop's Warehouse and tithing to dispense charity among themselves and others in times of need and natural disaster which they would consider sinful and cruel to steal from, and Shakers, when homeless people stole their food, planted extra food for starving people to steal and accepted indigents as "Winter Shakers" who didn't need to believe or genuinely convert to be fed and sheltered but could be welcomed to the community with any theft committed by them seen as charity without asking. until you have a uniform rule on what charity is, you can't see whether that just happens to be the communities that did those things were just the way those communities worked together, or the way the institutional rule worked. the return or input isn't proportional across those certainly at least, and the ones with the least investment and greatest return accrued the most power over lesser members. it doesn't mean feeding starving people low calorie broth once a week was the closest institutionally charitable either.

[late at night posting, apologies if this is word salad or completely off base]