Better Together: Restoring the American Community is both a book and website published as an initiative of the Saguaro Seminar conducted at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The initiative is aimed at facilitating rapid and extensive community development, particularly within the United States and uses a book with the same title by Robert Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein as its primary reference text. [1] [2] [3]
The Saguaro Seminar is a long-term research project aimed at significantly increasing Americans' connectedness to one another and to community institutions. Professor Putnam, also the author of national best seller Bowling Alone , leads the effort joined by Feldstein, other scholars, civic leaders, business people and politicians. The project's agenda includes building a knowledge base for understanding what creates and sustains civic trust, community participation and the bonds between people and their institutions. The seminar focuses on building social capital by conducting surveys and presenting initiatives for public engagement through the book and website.
The seminar's report, titled Better Together and issued in December 2000, called for a "nationwide campaign to redirect a downward spiral of civic apathy." The report warned that "social capital" in the US was dwindling to a critically low level and something needed to be done quickly to avoid civic catastrophe. The report further outlined a "framework for sustained, broad-based social change to restore America’s civic virtue" which culminated in both the book Better Together ( ISBN 0-7432-3546-0) and the website BetterTogether.org.
Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based on the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, with a smaller degree of development being placed on individualism. Although the community might be a family, communitarianism usually is understood, in the wider, philosophical sense, as a collection of interactions, among a community of people in a given place, or among a community who share an interest or who share a history. Communitarianism is often contrasted with individualism, and rejects extreme laissez-faire policies that deprioritize the stability of the overall community.
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, shared values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity. Some have described it as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common purpose, although this does not align with how it has been measured.
A local community has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location. The word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household. The word can also refer to the national community or global community.
Robert David Putnam is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is a 2000 nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam. It was developed from his 1995 essay entitled "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital". Putnam surveys the decline of social capital in the United States since 1950. He has described the reduction in all the forms of in-person social intercourse upon which Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He argues that this undermines the active civic engagement which a strong democracy requires from its citizens.
Martin Stuart Feldstein was an American economist. He was the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He served as president and chief executive officer of the NBER from 1978 to 2008. From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Feldstein was also a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body the Group of Thirty from 2003.
Ernesto Cortés Jr. is the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) co-chair and executive director of the West / Southwest IAF regional network.
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.
Social disruption is a term used in sociology to describe the alteration, dysfunction or breakdown of social life, often in a community setting. Social disruption implies a radical transformation, in which the old certainties of modern society are falling away and something quite new is emerging. Social disruption might be caused through natural disasters, massive human displacements, rapid economic, technological and demographic change but also due to controversial policy-making.
Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields of community organizing, community organization, community work, and community development.
Lewis M. Feldstein is the Co-Chair of The Saguaro Seminar along with Robert D. Putnam and was President of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation until June 2010. He collaborates with Putnum and many others on publications and projects such as the Better Together book and website aimed at promoting community and civic engagement.
Associationalism or associative democracy is a political movement in which "human welfare and liberty are both best served when as many of the affairs of a society as possible are managed by voluntary and democratically self-governing associations." Associationalism "gives priority to freedom in its scale of values, but it contends that such freedom can only be pursued effectively if individuals join with their fellows"
Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (ISBN 9780691037387) is a 1993 book written by Robert D. Putnam. Published by Princeton University Press, the book's central thesis is that social capital is key to high institutional performance and the maintenance of democracy.
Civic intelligence is an "intelligence" that is devoted to addressing public or civic issues. The term has been applied to individuals and, more commonly, to collective bodies, like organizations, institutions, or societies. Civic intelligence can be used in politics by groups of people who are trying to achieve a common goal. Social movements and political engagement in history might have been partly involved with collective thinking and civic intelligence. Education, in its multiple forms, has helped some countries to increase political awareness and engagement by amplifying the civic intelligence of collaborative groups. Increasingly, artificial intelligence and social media, modern innovations of society, are being used by many political entities and societies to tackle problems in politics, the economy, and society at large.
University of the Middle East Project (UME) is an independent non-governmental organization whose people-to-people exchange programs bring together secondary school educators from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the United States with the aim of enhancing pedagogical skills and encouraging cross-cultural dialogue and understanding. In the United States, UME is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, registered as The Center for Higher Education in the Middle East, Inc.
The gort cloud is "a vast, largely invisible and growing (environmentally-aware) 'community' that sieves, measures and exchanges information on environmental (green) products and services." "The community includes NGOs, government agencies, certifying groups, academics, eco-tech specialists, business alliances, green media including green business news, sustainable designers, foundations, other social networks, conferences, trade shows, events, competitions, green blogs, special interest groups, and trendspotters—to name just a few." The book, "The Gort Cloud", examines the marketing and brand-building experiences of sustainable businesses in America and discusses the gort cloud concept. It was critically reviewed by TreeHugger in December 2008.
The National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening civic life in America. They pursue their mission through a nationwide network of partners involved in a Civic Health Initiative, annual cross-sector conferences, and engagement with a broad spectrum of individuals and organizations interested in utilizing civic engagement principles and practices to enhance their work. Connecting people for the purpose of strengthening civic life is NCoC's goal. At the core of NCoC's joint efforts is the belief that every person has the ability to help his or her community and country thrive.
Lyda Judson Hanifan, better known as L. J. Hanifan, is credited with introducing the concept of social capital. Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone (2000) credits a 1916 paper by Hanifan as the first recorded instance of the term. Hanifan also authored a book published in 1920 that contains a chapter entitled "Social Capital".
Theory of generations is a theory posed by Karl Mannheim in his 1928 essay, "Das Problem der Generationen," and translated into English in 1952 as "The Problem of Generations." This essay has been described as "the most systematic and fully developed" and even "the seminal theoretical treatment of generations as a sociological phenomenon". According to Mannheim, people are significantly influenced by the socio-historical environment of their youth; giving rise, on the basis of shared experience, to social cohorts that in their turn influence events that shape future generations. Because of the historical context in which Mannheim wrote, some critics contend that the theory of generations centers on Western ideas and lacks a broader cultural understanding. Others argue that the theory of generations should be global in scope, due to the increasingly globalized nature of contemporary society.
Social engagement refers to one's degree of participation in a community or society.
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