Citizenship and Bridging Social Capital

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Michael Ford
May 23, 2025

Every summer I play on a softball team with a remarkable history. We are sponsored by a local bar/pizza parlor and have been for over three decades. Our coach has been there from the beginning. Players who once played on the team with their fathers now play on the team with their sons. Our roster comes from all walks of life. We have teachers, college students, factory workers, custodians and more. The other teams in the league share similar histories. It is an almost quaint example of community that is a highlight of my summer.

But each season there are fewer teams. A league that once spanned two nights is down to one. The players are getting longer in the tooth. Even the number of umpires in each game is down from two to one. When I asked one of my teammates why he thinks the league is struggling he shrugged and said people do not do things anymore. It was a simple yet insightful answer. I spend a lot of time reading research and survey results about the decline in community engagement but, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, I don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Recently, I looked at my old copy of Bowling Alone from graduate school and revisited some of my margin notes. It took me back to one productive discussion my classmates had about the potential of the internet and larger virtual world to serve the social capital building function in the future. The optimists in the group described a future where technology brings us closer together by exposing more people to more ideas, building less centralized networks and creating a post-locale world that moves us past political and social divisions rooted in a lack of exposure to those with whom we differ. It was a nice thought, albeit one I think has failed to be realized.

I saw that failure up close last summer when my colleagues and I conducted a series of focus groups with leaders across Wisconsin. We were asking about many things surrounding our political and social divides but one large takeaway was the absence of bridging social capital, i.e., that which builds connections between diverse groups of society. My softball team is an example of a bridging social capital activity. On that field we are people who share a common interest but a side-effect is that every week we get to strengthen connections between people of different socio-economic and demographic backgrounds as well as political persuasions.

Bridging social capital can combat the groupthink that occurs when we limit our interactions to those with which we share social and political beliefs. In a state of groupthink we can easily demonize those with whom we disagree. It becomes much harder to demonize someone when you know them personally and have had a chance to understand why they hold the values they do. Think about it from a democratic governing context.

Democratic governance requires the consent of the governed. Because the public’s needs and values are diverse, there will always be critiques of any government action. But a government can navigate those critiques as long as it maintains legitimacy. Legitimacy is the difference between simply disagreeing with a government action and rejecting it. The former provides space for compromise and growth, the latter creates stalemates that erode trust in the idea of government itself.

Unfortunately the retreat into the virtual world has, to a great extent in my opinion, created echo chambers that reinforce one’s views without exposing them to alternatives. The political discourse on social media turns every dissenting opinion as well as those who voice it into a caricature. I fear the more social media becomes the primary venue for public discourse the more unsustainable our democracy becomes.

Returning to my softball example, those of us committed to democratic governance need to cultivate more spaces where bridging social capital can grow. The difference between viewing someone as a good person with a dissenting viewpoint or a stranger who is an existential threat to my way of life can be as simple as a conversation.

It is encouraging to see more MPA programs and PA researchers engaging with civic health and citizenship. Though different from the hard skills of budgeting and planning that are so crucial to our field, those hard skills lose their value if the democratic foundation of our government erodes. No doubt that foundation is being challenged at the macro-level but maybe a focus on the micro-level work of citizenship and engagement can address the challenge.

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Author: Michael R. Ford is the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Citizenship and Civil Dialogue at the Universities of Wisconsin. He frequently publishes on the topics of public and nonprofit board governance, accountability and education policy. He is an elected member of the Oshkosh Area School District Board.

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