Civic culture and socioeconomic development in the United States: a view from the states, 1880s-1990s

Tom W. Rice, University of Iowa
Marshall Arnett

Abstract

Putnam (1993) reported that the geographic distribution of civic culture in Italy has remained about the same for at least 100 years. He also found that civic culture at the turn of the century does a better job than socioeconomic development during the same period of explaining contemporary levels of civic culture and socioeconomic development. In this study, we extend the analysis of culture and development to the US states. Like Putnam, we find that civic culture is very durable, with the relative ranking of the states in terms of civic culture staying about the same over the last 100 years. Also like Putnam, we show that civic culture seems to influence socioeconomic development far more than the other way around. Taken together, the findings from Italy and the US are powerful evidence that civic culture is an important antecedent to socioeconomic development