Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life

Skocpol argues that a particular organizational form—the national, federated, chapter-based voluntary association that recruited members across class lines—was the backbone of American democratic life for over a century. These groups, numbering 58 with memberships exceeding one percent of the population, linked local communities to national politics and gave ordinary Americans opportunities for leadership and civic skill development . Since the 1960s, this form has collapsed, replaced by professionally managed advocacy organizations in Washington that lobby government but mobilize no popular membership. The shift from membership to management, Skocpol contends, has diminished democratic capacity and severed the connection between elites and ordinary citizens .

Skocpol criticizes Putnam for misdiagnosing the problem. While Putnam laments the general decline of social capital and community involvement, Skocpol identifies what specifically made the old membership organizations work: their national federated structure, cross-class recruitment, and integration into political mobilization . She argues that localism alone cannot revitalize democracy—the old groups were translocal and political, not merely local and social. Putnam's focus on bowling leagues misses the institutional form that gave associational life its democratic character. Skocpol further notes that elite social capital has not declined, suggesting the problem is not a general decline in sociability but a specific loss of mass-membership vehicles for political participation .

Skocpol identifies the national, federated, chapter-based voluntary association as the distinctive form that undergirded American democracy from the 1830s through the 1960s. These organizations—including fraternal lodges like the Masons and Odd Fellows, veterans' groups like the Grand Army of the Republic, women's clubs, and labor unions—mirrored the federal structure of the U.S. government with national, state, and local levels . They recruited members across class lines, held regular meetings, and engaged in both local charitable activities and national political advocacy. Their federal structure gave members opportunities to develop civic skills, participate in decision-making, and connect local concerns to national politics .

Skocpol identifies several interacting causes. The civil rights and feminist movements delegitimated older associations that had histories of racial and gender exclusion; by 1997, 90 percent of Americans said they would be unlikely to join a group with a discriminatory history . The declining prestige of the military undermined the patriotic brotherhood ideal at the heart of male fraternal organizations . New opportunities for women restructured their civic engagement away from broad-based associations. Meanwhile, progressive-era reforms and the professionalization of advocacy created new channels for political influence that bypassed mass membership . These changes, Skocpol argues, were not inevitable but reflected specific political and cultural shifts.

Skocpol explicitly distances herself from conservative commentators who blame national government for civic decline. She argues that government actually fueled the growth of mass associations through cheap postage, subsidized transportation, and wars . The problem is not big government but the shift from participatory membership organizations to professionally managed advocacy groups funded by foundations and staffed by policy experts . These new organizations, she contends, speak with an upper-middle-class voice, ignore potential grassroots supporters, and fail to build the cross-class coalitions that once supported social-democratic policy. Her critique is aimed at liberals who treat professional advocacy as a substitute for popular mobilization.

Critics argue Skocpol overdraws the distinction between membership organizations and staff-run advocacy groups. As one review notes, many membership organizations endured partly because of expert, paid staff—the binary between membership and management is not as clean as she suggests . Others question whether the organizational form itself, rather than the content of civic life, should carry so much weight, given that the same federated structure served the Ku Klux Klan as readily as the Boy Scouts . Some reviewers also find her proposals for reinvigorating civic democracy 'a bit tired and fragmented' .