In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam claimed that mainstream Protestants, through their volunteer work and assistance to the wider community, played an important in US civil society. This paper will report on on-going research testing whether socially-engaged Buddhists, whose activities are similar to those of mainstream Protestants have played a similar role in the growth of Taiwan’s civil society. It will also, based on observations of Taiwan society over a forty-plus year period, examine a nexus between civil society and civility, and argue that a prima facie case can be made for the proposition that the spirit of socially-engaged Buddhism is highly conductive to a norm of civility.
