Volunteering correlates with political engagement, not alienation

Evidence

The rise in volunteering is sometimes interpreted as a natural counter-weight to the decline in other forms of civic participation. Disenchanted with government, it is said, members of the younger generation are rolling up their sleeves to get the job done themselves. The profile of the new volunteerism directly contradicts that optimistic thesis. First, the rise in volunteering is concentrated among the boomers’ aging, civic parents, whereas the civic dropouts are drawn disproportionately from the boomers. Second, volunteering is part of the syndrome of good citizenship and political involvement, not an alternative to it. Volunteers are more interested in politics and less cynical about political leaders than nonvolunteers are. Volunteering is a sign of positive engagement with politics, not a sign of rejection of politics. This is as true for young adults as anyone else, and it is as true at the turn of the century as it was twenty-five years earlier. Conversely, political cynics, even young cynics, are less likely than other people to volunteer. Political alienation rose over the last several decades of the twentieth century, and so did volunteering, but volunteering rose despite the greater alienation, not because of it. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 432

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Affective closeness to home undermines volunteers’ political competence and imagination. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 155; Parental involvement in PTAs functions as an especially productive form of civic engagement. — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 33; Regular meaningful service builds civic skills while episodic service does not — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1459 (+2 more)